I got called demonic by someone online for the first time the other day,\u201d says the alt musician Sofia Isella<\/a>, who is not annoyed but in a blissful reverie. \u201cThere were other compliments within her message: I have \u2018the most ominous aura she\u2019s ever seen in her life\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n I wouldn\u2019t say these things about the 20-year-old LA native<\/a> goth at all but I might say she\u2019s mysterious. Across the cafe table from me, she\u2019s completely obscured by a big hood and steampunk glasses. I\u2019m trying to interview her but every question I ask is countered with a softly spoken question. \u2018Do you remember what you learned in math class?\u2019 \u2018What is your least favourite modern word?\u2019 \u2018But what do you think about that?\u2019 As she calmly knits herself a fingerless glove \u2013 while wearing it \u2013 all I can think is that I\u2019m not surprised that this curious person is a curiosity to 1.7 million people<\/a> on Instagram. She likes to learn about other people, she says, although this sometimes comes across as passionate debate. \u201cI\u2019m going easy on you\u2026\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n In person, Isella is gentle and thoughtful, but that spikier side exists in her music: acerbic whispered poetry set to Nine Inch Nails-style beats. On the distinctive piano-led track \u201cThe Doll People\u201d, she is a dark Regina Spektor, explaining in ironic ASMR tones why women are best enjoyed beautiful and mute: \u201cArt does not interpret itself \/ There are men with a day to save \/ We are paintings with legs\u201d.<\/p>\n Isella thinks it might have been her elegant rant \u201cEverybody Supports Women\u201d, about how women inevitably get torn down from every angle, that got the attention of Taylor Swift<\/a>, who chose her to play at Wembley Stadium on her Eras Tour. Or at least, it was that song that was mentioned in a handwritten letter Swift gave to the singer. \u201cIt\u2019s easier to play Wembley than it is to play a bar with two people,\u201d Isella says, shaking off any idea that she might\u2019ve needed some extra nerves to scale up her intimate live sets so dramatically.<\/p>\n Of Swift she says: \u201cShe\u2019s the kindest person.\u201d Fifteen minutes before Swift was due to go onstage, she came to say hello to Isella. \u201cShe was fully dressed and ready \u2013 it was very surreal. It was like seeing Taylor Swift in person,\u201d she adds with a knowing half-smile. But everyone says that Taylor Swift is the kindest person in the world, she admits. \u201cI get asked about Taylor a lot, and every time I feel like I\u2019m answering as though I\u2019m a stereotype, like I\u2019m answering how I should. And I\u2019m trying to figure out how to communicate how that was such a big emotional experience for me in ways I can\u2019t; it\u2019s very frustrating because the words that you use to communicate that are very clich\u00e9d.\u201d<\/p>\n Just as difficult to express is the awe of soundchecking at Wembley, to an empty stadium. \u201cWhat was really impactful about it to me was that the beats I made on my little plastic s***ty keyboard in my bedroom were now being blasted through Wembley\u2019s sound system. It was just nuts,\u201d she says, with a shake of her head.<\/p>\n Sofia Isella: live and screaming (Corey Eyres)<\/p>\n Isella had been performing early (\u201cmuch happier\u201d) iterations of her work live to (albeit very small) audiences when she was a young teenager living in Australia before her family moved back to California. In LA she was homeschooled and she believes the freedom this afforded her is completely to thank for her creative career: \u201cBeing homeschooled protected my mind a lot,\u201d she explains. \u201cI practised violin three to five hours a day, produced, learned how to do it all myself. Not everybody is gifted that amount of free time. I think boredom is really important for kids. I didn\u2019t get a phone until I was 16, didn\u2019t have social media. I think that really saved me.\u201d<\/p>\n In what way? \u201cEverybody has a very similar social media personality and when I joined social media for the first time it was very obvious to me,\u201d she says flatly. \u201cI was confused about why everybody is acting the same. Now I don\u2019t notice it as much because I\u2019m on it so much. But everybody acts the same. It\u2019s a little creepy.\u201d Then there\u2019s the way it flattens our language, our creative output: \u201cThe internet has a lot of inside jokes and if I know an inside joke, I feel ashamed because I don\u2019t want to know what our collective humour is.\u201d<\/p>\n Her own sense of humour is dry and observational, clearly informed by having a childhood inoculated from too many outside influences. Instead of being online, she was reading feminist greats Sylvia Plath and The Handmaid\u2019s Tale author Margaret Atwood. Her father is Chilean-American cinematographer Claudio Miranda, best known for his work on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Life of Pi. Together they shoot and edit her eerie black-and-white or sepia music videos, while she creates her own abstract videos for social media. Everything she makes feels strange, certainly untouched by the LA music industry.<\/p>\n Her most recent (very unsettling) EP I\u2019m camera \u2013 all confrontational images against industrial soundscapes \u2013 feels like a musical museum of taxidermied oddities. \u201cCrowd Caffeine\u201d is a creepy track about how we sanitise the human experience with overuse of technology and has Grimes<\/a> (another notable Sofia Isella fan and follower) listed as a songwriter. She technically didn\u2019t have a hand in writing it but Isella was heavily inspired by something the electronic musician posted<\/a> online in 2024: \u201cThe machines want to be like humans \/ humans r trying be like machines \/ I\u2019m sure we can work smthn out\u201d.<\/p>\n Violin playing is a typical feature of Sofia Isella\u2019s surreal live shows (Corey Eyres)<\/p>\n While she\u2019s mostly interested in writing about the experience of women, one song, \u201cMan Made\u201d, is for her male counterparts. \u201cIt\u2019s an empathetic approach to them shooting themselves in the foot with masculinity demands,\u201d she explains. When she was 15, she asked lots of her friends the question, \u201cWhat is the biggest pressure that society puts on you?\u201d The girls said beauty standards. \u201cThe men \u2013 kind men \u2013 all said they felt pressured by other men to talk s*** about women, to be mean to them, to not be a \u2018simp\u2019 or whatever that word is\u2026 to not love women.\u201d This surprised her, but then human beings are constantly surprising her.<\/p>\n Around the time we speak, she\u2019s preparing to return to the UK to play Reading and Leeds Festival \u2013 which took place this weekend \u2013 and a short headlining tour. \u201cI\u2019ve always known that this is definitely the world that I sacrifice myself to,\u201d she says of pop music, as though it\u2019s the most normal thing in the world. \u201cBecause every world is a sacrifice. You gain something but everything you say yes to, you are sacrificing something else.\u201d Take a Taylor Swift, for example. \u201cSomebody at those big levels, we see their highlight reel, but they\u2019re always sacrificing something.\u201d At present, Isella can walk out into her crowds and hold hands with fans, have meaningful conversations with them even. \u201cI\u2019m small enough now that people still see me somewhat as human.\u201d But it may not be long before she\u2019s seen as less human, more icon, more machine.<\/p>\n Sofia Isella is on a headlining UK tour 26\u201328 August<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/span><\/div>\n
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