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Photo: Angela Donna

In her latest alt-indie ballad, Vancouver-based artist Sophia Stel invites listeners to picture a familiar nightclub scene: slipping through silhouettes, dazed by flashing strobes, ears ringing with pounding beats, tangled in a rhythm of heat and motion– losing yourself one song, one drink at a time – until the night slips away, the music stops, the lights turn on. Your friends have faded into curated digital memories on social media. You head home, feeling completely and utterly alone. We’ve all been there. The shallow, hollow, performative ritual of going out, faking euphoria in a borrowed outfit, and pretending as though life is curated for the feed. All of Stel’s friends are doing it, and so are ours. But here’s the twist: Stel’s done pretending. And maybe it’s time you are too. “All My Friends Are Models,” nails this disillusioned apathetic mood, a track pulsing with textural layers, ethereal vocals, electropop guitar, and above all, a visceral feeling, just as Stel intended.

Stel deliberately drifts from mainstream social media. She’s traded the need to carry an iPhone for an LG flip phone, rejecting consumer culture in favor of a simpler lifestyle – one that nods to the (ironically, trendy) Y2K era. It’s a quiet rebellion against influencer culture, without the need to tear it down. Her music similarly resists being confined to a single genre, instead layering melodies and textures that feel current yet create something fresh, ethereal, and nostalgic.

Created in a makeshift basement studio, the track unravels like a woven quilt of Stel’s raw, honest emotions. It opens with the artist’s confession of past feelings of rejection, confronting the lingering guilt and anxiety that follow: “Cold sweat, I was so ashamed to be alone / Old debt, I could never pay you what I owe.” She contemplates the weight of it all, singing “Life is long / But I think I’ll stay for one more song.” Electro-pop guitar loops into a hypnotic trance leading up to the chorus, where Stel seems to rise above the noise: “All my friends are models / I’m not complaining now / There’s harder pills to swallow.” The track closes in a comforting never-ending loop with Stel’s whispery, echoing alto layered over warm piano chords and an entrancing drum beat: “No-oh-oh, I’m never going home.” But this time, she hasn’t lost herself in the crowd – she’s found peace in her own solitude.

“All My Friends Are Models” is the third release from Stel’s upcoming sophomore EP, How to Win at Solitaire, out September 5. She’s emerging with full force, gearing up to kick off her first-ever headlining European tour on November 7 at Pitchfork Festival in Paris.