Sophia Stel is a Canadian electronic artist who blends her emotional vocals with elements of hyper-pop and, on this mellow breakup tune, trip-hop.
I just found out about the Serpentine Gallery’s Park Nights, sadly too late to be there- and about Sophi Stel’s performance at the pavilion.
How I wish I had gone; though the truth is that though I’ve been to this year’s pavilion, created by Mexican architecture studio LANZA Atelier, I was not familiar with her work until prompted by reading about the event.
This is the first song I found: Solitaire is an atmospheric breakup song – I’d call it post-breakup – that carries Stel’s ethereal vocals on a pillow of electronic beats.
Her vulnerable voice is perfectly suited to songs exploring the tension and fragility of our current moment; this one, written after the end of a relationship, captures the sense of loss and loneliness.
I imagine it would be particularly haunting on a hot summer’s night in Hyde Park with the music, and that voice, echoing through the darkened trees and across the lake.
Interestingly, Stel is signed to A24 Music, the music wing of the film company that makes so many of the most interesting movies at the moment, and her live performances are renowned for their cinematic nature.
Stel is one of 11 children born into a religious family in Canada, and is now based in Vancouver. She first came to attention with her Object Permanence EP in 2024, integrating chiming guitars into hypnotic synths and motorik beats.
How to Win at Solitaire was her second EP, released in 2025 and featured this song, Solitaire, whose trip-hop-adjacent vibe reminds me of Poliça, while her voice is reminiscent of their singer Channy Leaneagh.
The EP also included the autobiographical All My Friends Are Models – coinciding with her own appearance on the runway for Belgian designer Ann Demeulemeester at Paris Fashion Week.
Listening to more of her work, this song’s trip-hop vibe is something of an outlier: most of her music veers closer to the hyper-pop genre pioneered by Charli XCX and the late Sophie.