Sophia Stel's 'the greatest album of all time' Is a Fog-Bound Masterpiece of Self-Production
Name your debut the greatest album of all time and you have made a dare out of a tracklist. Sophia Stel, who grew up in Saanich on Vancouver Island and spent years making music she was too unsure to release, says the title was the assignment: “I’m going to make an album that helps me to feel the type of confidence that I feel like I need going into these rooms.” Then she adds the part that makes it likeable — “being kind and confident is the best way you can be in life.”
The Sonic Breakdown
The Production & Mix
The Low-End: kick drums do the emotional work here. Paste hears vocals “warbling over synth arpeggios and the resonant click of an 808”; Still Listening’s Hellen Ding marks “I’ll Walk” as the record’s turning point, where “a minute in, the full weight of the drums hits” and “metronome-esque violins mimic her footsteps.” The Spatial Dynamics: everything is set back in the room on purpose. Stereogum’s Tom Breihan describes “a sleekly moody form of bedroom pop with sleepy-murmur vocals and strobing synth-flickers,” tracks that “sometimes sound like damaged cassette versions of half-remembered pop songs from decades ago, played on boom boxes with dying batteries.” On “I Do” he finds dance-pop architecture rendered “a bit faraway, like you’re only seeing outlines in the fog.” Paste clocks “Power” as “bolstered by housey synth wahs and an extended trance breakdown.”
Standout Performance
Stel, as her own producer. Paste puts it plainly: the album “is the product of Sophia Stel and her laptop.” Twelve tracks with nobody else’s hands on the faders is the whole argument.
Why It’s Certified
Breihan’s verdict is honest and glowing at once: “It’s not the greatest album of all time, but it’s really good,” and in its best moments the music “inches out of the eternal now, toward something approaching transcendence.” Ding calls it “a victory lap for an artist on the rise” built on “a distinctive vocal identity that shapes the whole record into one cohesive memory.” Stel describes her own register best: “my music tends to be soundtrack-like. To me it’s meant to be listened to on your walk home with headphones in. It’s quite private.” She dedicated it to her brothers.