Eerie like Ethel Cain. Stage presence like Alanis Morissette and Tyler Joseph. Lyrics like Margaret Atwood. We're witnessing the uprising of a new musical weirdo, and she’s doing everything she can to keep our eyes on her.
21-year-old SOFIA ISELLA has audiences wrapped around her rubber-banded finger, and all she has to do is breathe. Her sound is industrial and dark, as heavy as the baggy clothes she tugs over herself. Synths and electric guitars pulse against ISELLA’s sibilance, screeches and chain-jangling dragging along in echoes. Her music creeps me out in the best way. She weaves in deep breaths and mouth smacking right beside her angelic vocals. Ambient sound becomes music too; “Muse” includes the buzzing of flies and Lurch-like grumbling.
Since her first EP release in 2020, ISELLA has been crawling towards stardom in the ugliest way possible. She streaks her eyebrows up. She soaks herself in mud. She tumbles around on stage, whipping her body to and fro. She keeps her brown hair swooping across her face. All of these components combine into the type of star quality needed to go viral online (“Everybody Supports Women” has millions of views on TikTok) and amass crowds of fans in the thousands. But who’s the up-and-coming woman behind this ghoulish character?
The beginning
ISELLA moved around a lot as a kid (and I mean a lot — three different continents worth of moving) and was brought up by her celebrated filmmaker father, Claudio Miranda, and her writer mother, Kelli Bean. The family of three settled in Los Angeles in 2024, allowing for a more permanent way for the then-19-year-old to interact with the California music scene. ISELLA hasn’t seen much of it though, aside from performing in L.A. herself.
“I don’t really go outside much, which explains why I’m so pale,” ISELLA deadpanned. “But L.A. shows have been very different. Some of them are quiet, some of them are super loud. I think my favorite L.A. show has been the Troubadour. That one was great.”
She picked up the violin at just two years old and has since added guitar and banjo to her toolbelt. For many of us, it could be hard to identify a famous violinist to enjoy. For a classically-trained violinist, that’s different, and ISELLA has her fair share of inspiration to draw from. In regard to those she’s inspired by, there's one in particular that she'd jump at the chance to collaborate with.
“I grew up watching Hilary Hahn,” ISELLA said. “I would watch her on YouTube for the piece I was playing.”
Hahn is also ISELLA’s inspiration for her contemporary classical sounds, which she showcased on her self-titled 2024 EP.
The muses
Thanks to her upbringing, film and literature are baked into ISELLA's identity. The visuals of movies she watches bleed into her lyrics, some giving you a feeling that your skin is crawling. Can you guess what her favorite film genre is?
“I think cinema has had a big affect on me, naturally,” ISELLA says. “I love horror — obviously. Get Out was really good. Anything by Jordan Peele is really good.”
Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton are some of her favorite authors. Fans of The Bell Jar and Live or Die will hear those works' themes of feminism and existentialism in ISELLA’s music.
“I love their humor,” ISELLA says. “I think humor is a great way of noticing details about life. [Plath and Sexton] have a dark sense of humor to them, which I love.”
The exhibit
And then there’s her live performances. I’ve been watching ISELLA on TikTok for the last few years, and every video I’ve seen causes me to stop scrolling. There’s something about her dirtiness, her theatricality, her authenticity, that strikes me. I can’t look away.
Her audience agrees. ISELLA is known for going out into the crowd, meeting people eye-to-eye, gripping hands and touching foreheads. It’s a very intimate act that draws fans in even closer.
“The first time I went out [into the audience] I’m pretty sure [was at] my first headline show in London,” ISELLA says. “I went out for ‘All of Human Knowledge Made Us Dumb.’ My team thought it wasn’t a good idea, but it was fine. And it went great today,” she recalled about her crowd-surfing escapade earlier in the day at Hinterland.
Her 2026 EP Something is a shell . criticizes the patriarchy, questions the pillars of religion and grieves a lost love. The blunt honesty of her music is exactly what we need in a time of mixed signals and double entendres.
Is it weird that I hope ISELLA gets even more provocative?
