THE PROVOCATEUR BY ROB TENNENT AND EMMA KALFUS
PHOTOGRAPHER: Rob Tennent
STYLIST: Emma Kalfus
STYLIST'S ASSISTANT: Joel Piccinini
DIGI: Conrad Wainwright
HAIR: Darren Summors @ A.P. Reps
MAKEUP: Sean Brady @ A.P. Reps
WORDS: Noelle Faulkner
Throughout history, there have always been artists who arrive at the right cultural moment to pull back society’s curtain and expose its underbelly. Sofia Isella is one of these artists. The most exciting new star to emerge in recent years, she’s also likely to be your favourite artists’ favourite new artist. At 21, the Los Angeles-born and based (and intermittently Gold Coast-raised) musician, producer and poet has already positioned herself within pop’s current ecosystem as a true original and social archivist of sorts, documenting the ways women are watched, wanted, valued, flattened and fed back to themselves in high definition and within a deeply literal frame.
Classically trained on the violin from the age of three and using the pen as a sword before she hit double digits, she counts Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Margaret Atwood, Mona Awad and Trent Reznor as influences – artists who have held up black mirrors to expose the cracks in humanity’s veneer, and who understand that intimacy can also be confrontational. Like a cultural conduit, Isella’s music follows this same lineage, documenting with a refreshing suspicion, honesty and self-awareness the darkness, the light, the rot and the cruelty that live behind the shininess of our digitally backlit times.
Ottolinger top (worn throughout) and shoes; Acne Studios jeans (worn throughout), Isella’s own rings (worn throughout)
Isella’s early audience arrived via the internet, yet ironically, her work reads as a rebuttal to social media’s effect and the problems that live behind the algorithm. As the daughter of Oscar-winning cinematographer Claudio Miranda and writer Kelli Bean-Miranda, Isella has a skilled mastery of both written and visual world-building languages well beyond her years, and within these outputs, she highlights politics and society, circling themes of surveillance, desire, teen sexualisation, artificiality and the theatre of modern femininity. The result is gritty pop music and a visual world that feels like it knows it’s being watched – an observation that might feel very on the nose for the now, but that’s the point. She is simultaneously the observer, object and evidence.
Having released her first single in 2022, and with two EPs under her belt and another on the way, the tension in her body of work also shows up in fascinating ways elsewhere. In 2024, Isella found herself opening for Taylor Swift on The Eras Tour at Wembley Stadium. Here was an artist whose work interrogates fame, performing inside one of its biggest machines. However, what distinguishes Isella from many of her contemporaries is not only the way she thematically toys with grit, but her refusal to soften for palatability, leaving the edges of her subject matter jagged and the listener implicated. We caught up with the Angeleno after her recent Australian tour to discuss writing, creativity, fame and how her home-schooled background helped mature and sharpen her gaze.
Courtney Zheng T-shirt
Haluminous top and hood; Courtney Zheng skirt; Acne Studios shoes
SIDE-NOTE: You spent a few years growing up in Australia on the Gold Coast, but also travelled a lot as a child and were homeschooled. What was that experience like?
SOFIA ISELLA: I travelled a lot because of my dad’s job, and that resulted in me being home-schooled, and being home-schooled was the stuff of legends. I absolutely loved it. I am really grateful for being home-schooled. I think that has changed my world view, a lot of how I process things and how I see everything. But I was constantly travelling. I don’t really know how to explain how that’s shaped me, because I don’t know what I would be like without it. I just noticed that in my life, I have a hard time connecting to a lot of kids my age, because we have very different experiences. But I was a very strange kid.
SN: Your dad is an Oscar-winning cinematographer and your mother is a writer, which are very creatively evocative, multi-layered professions. How did they influence you?
SI: My dad is very visual. Growing up with him, we would do little music videos with my stuffed animals. I would hear all his rants about lighting in films, and I became influenced by cinema from a young age. My dad would fly out to do jobs, and my mum was constantly here – she’s my best friend. She is very creative and hands-on, and very intelli – gent. I feel like I have, like, my team-mate in her, and we’re just constantly thinking about music. I lucked out with parents – I hit the jackpot. I’m one of the luckiest people I know.
SN: What made you decide to pursue music rather than literature or cinema?
SI: [My parents] weren’t aiming for me to do music, especially because it wasn’t either of their fields of expertise. But they never really wanted me to do something in film or writing. They definitely did not have any inkling for me to be, like, a doctor. [Laughs.] This is what I also mean in terms of lucking out. Violin was my first entrance into music. When I was two, I saw an all-female mariachi band, and when the violinist started playing, I started jumping up and down. I obviously don’t remember this; I’m taking my parents’ word for it. But I started violin from there, and then I started songwriting at eight. But I was also bored as fuck as a home-schooler, so my mum would leave all these journals around, and I would just write songs – like, three a day.
Zero Meaning top; Miu Miu pants
SN: It’s famously hard to write lyrics that are at once visceral, poetic, political and so straightforward, which you do. How did you figure out your process and the way you communicate?
SI: A lot of what I do is brain-draining pages of just writing whatever comes to my mind, and I find a lot of lyrics in that. I’m a big fan of words, especially plain words with no music to them. I obviously love music, but I really just love words.
SN: You’ve mentioned Margaret Atwood, Sylvia Plath, Mona Awad and Anne Sexton as inspirational touchpoints. They all touch on dark subject matter. Is darkness the attraction?
SI: I don’t know if I read it as dark. I understand it’s a dark thing, but it just feels comedic to me. It feels honest; honest and comedic.
SN: Something you’ve said in the past touches on a kind of superstition of writing or speaking something into reality – which is also a superstition Susie Cave, Nick Cave’s wife, has famously held about his work, too. How has this manifested in your work?
SI: So something happened recently. I got a comment on [2023 single] “Hot Gum” on my page. They were like, “What is this song about?” And somebody responded, “Sofia says it’s about sex trafficking.” Which, first of all, no, I did fucking not. But I responded to this comment and was like, “If I did write a song about sex trafficking, it wouldn’t have a funky beat to it.” And then I wrote [2025 single] “Above the Neck”, which talks about the dark ways that kids are sexualised, and how everything is sexualised. And there’s a funky beat to it. [Laughs.] So I didn’t intend to write a dark song with a funky beat, just sometimes these things happen. Sometimes you can’t control what comes out.
Zero Meaning shirt; Bassike T-shirt; Courtney Zheng skirt
SN: “Above the Neck” is a great example of how you look at culture as it’s happening, in an age where social media has highlighted the cracks in society, particularly around women and youth. What do you hope people take from your songs?
SI: I’m a very argumentative person. I love talking to people who disagree with me, passionately. Like, I usually find a subject that will be a little trigger for my debates at that current time. Recently, it’s been religion. But in songs in general, especially if it’s something political, my big goal is to change people’s minds, and I think music is… Like, if you can get an earworm into somebody’s head that’s really catchy… [Laughs.] Today, there’s a stupid song that’s stuck in my head – it’s the “We Are Charlie Kirk” song. [Laughs.] I’ve been screaming it! [Sings.] Weee are Charlie Kirrrrk. [Laughs.] I’m like, belting it. It’s so much fun. Anyway, that’s kind of like the goal, you know? I’m very passionate about debating. I’m very passionate about changing minds. That’s the biggest compliment somebody can give me.
SN: Are you conscious of the listening experience that you want to conjure from people in that respect?
SI: I don’t know. A lot of it is just making me laugh. And if I’m laughing, then I assume somebody else is going to be laughing. For “Numbers”, which is a song that’s coming out, a lot of it was me imagining somebody arguing with me and what I think they’d say, because I’ve had so many debates with people on the topic of numbers that I already know what every single one of them will say. I’ll just make the argument I have for that in my head, then write it. I talk to myself constantly. It drives my family crazy. I’ll be in the car and just be talking to myself. I do it for hours. I have a great time. [Laughs.]
SN: You toured with Taylor Swift and were up there doing your thing and being so parallel to a lot of the feminist arguments that Swift also touches on in her music, but also so different. Do you think the role of the female pop star is changing?
SI: I don’t even know if there’s one role for a pop star to play. I’m very into grunge and dirt and ’90s alternative scream. And I’m also very into the cute pop princess girlies who are just spinning around and doing their kicks or whatever they’re doing. I think there are a lot of different ways to do it – I don’t know if there’s just one rule. I know some artists like to create escapism. I wouldn’t say that’s what my music is. Whatever the opposite word of escapism is, I would say that’s mine. Unless you see escapism as just getting really, really an – gry about reality.
SN: There’s so much room for dichotomy, spectrums and contrast – the same people who would be fans of someone like Sabrina Carpenter are also fans of yours, which is great and pushes against that binary idea of what women, especially, love and relate to. What was it like touring with Taylor Swift? Because that is huge.
SI: It was a massive gig. I’ve told this story a lot, but the main story of the day was walking out during soundcheck into the empty Wembley Stadium on The Eras Tour stage. That was probably the highlight of my life. I don’t even know how to word that feeling. I wish I could record a feeling. I saw it online, but it was absolutely nothing compared to physically walking on it. It was just like, what a crazy Thursday night! Like, what the fuck?! You know what I mean?
SN: How did the fans respond?
SI: They were so great. There was a moment where the entire track glitched and stopped mid-set. I don’t remember that much – I just remember thinking, “Oh, that happens sometimes.” I had a bunch of bracelets, and I’m like, “I’m just going to distract them by throwing bracelets at them.” [Laughs.] And it worked! They had a great time. They caught my bracelets. That’s what I normally do. I’ll just be like, “Here are some bracelets.” It happens pretty often, so I was comfortable.
SN: Talk to us about the visual world building that you create, because it’s so evocative, and clearly, everything you do is not just about the music.
SI: The visual is really important to me. That also ties into being around my dad, who is a very visual guy. But our aesthetic is very different. His aesthetic is like, insane, beautiful, cinematic lighting, and it’s gorgeous. And mine is like, I’m in the basement, and you can’t really see me, and I look a little bit like I’m not human, and it’s also really distorted, and there’s like a single flashlight. So I’m always thinking about the visual of something, the performance of something – the whole world clicking together is very important to me. I’m independent, I have no label, so there’s not even a big boss who’s like, “You can’t do that.” Also, a massive thing for me is control, and I truly don’t think anybody can do it except for the artist. I think anything else that’s fake is not interesting and it doesn’t make sense, because it’s not coming from one brain. So I think it’s really, really important.
SN: You’ve got an EP on the cards for this year. Any hints you can provide on the themes you’re exploring?
SI: Yeah, shell. Like hollowness, a shell of something. Every song on the EP, in some way or another, ties to hollowness and a shell. And there are all very different ways of going about that. One is a song that discusses a relationship, but it’s like something that happened to you many, many years ago. So it’s like a shell of a relationship. There’s one that is talking about how women are bodies, and it’s not full of any soul, and it’s just a shell of that. Every single one of the songs is connected somehow to a shell.
SN: How do you feel about fame?
SI: Well, I wouldn’t say I’ve experienced quite a bit of fame. It’s so bizarre. If I’m in LA, I’ll rarely get recognised. If I’m in the UK or Australia, I get recognised much more. But fame is a big umbrella. I guess it depends on the aspect of it. I don’t feel like I’m experiencing fame. People think that when you have success in some way, you must be constantly experiencing 1000 consecutive orgasms at all times. But I feel the exact same way I felt when I was 15, except I’m slightly less stressed. My perspective on everything is very similar; I see everything through the same eyes. You are still yourself, experiencing everything like you’ve normally experienced it. You don’t have this life-altering, personality-changing thing that people make it out to be.
SN: One aspect of fame is social media, particularly in terms of the nastiness that can come with the instantaneous effect of virality. How do you feel about being perceived by that many people engaging with your artform, your words, your looks and your style?
SI: It doesn’t really affect me, and by that I mean negatively. It doesn’t emotionally yank me around. That’s because I’ve been very cautious of that affecting me since I was, like, 14, just kind of waiting for the ball to drop. I thought it would maybe affect me a little bit more, but I think because I can’t think of a single artist ever, or any artist that I love, who doesn’t have people who want them dead… I can’t think of a single person who doesn’t have people who hate their guts. Like, what does it matter? Everybody experiences the exact same thing. The things people will say about you have been said, copied and pasted towards literally every single person ever. And it’s not special and it’s not unique. Maybe, if it were a little bit more special and unique, maybe it would be more of a punch, but it’s all just so, like, average.
