Sophia Stel shares cover of Justin Bieber’s “Mistletoe”

Vancouver artist and producer Sophia Stel has just dropped off a cover of Justin Bieber‘s “Mistletoe”. Released on YouTube, the track caps off a banner year that saw her embark on her first headline tour, make her runway debut at Ann Demeulemeester‘s Paris Fashion Week SS26 show, and grace the cover of NME — as well as recent spreads for Palace Skateboards and BASKETCASE — following the release of her breakout EP How to Win At Solitaire. The project was produced, written, and recorded by Stel in a makeshift basement studio at Vancouver’s since shuttered Paradise, the DIY club she worked in at the time. In addition to a recent performance at Pitchfork Festival in Paris, Stel was also recently selected for this year’s DAZED 100 and earned spots on Best Of 2025 lists from Notion, Gorilla vs. Bear, and Hearing Things.

How to Win At Solitaire stamped Stel’s second project following her 2024 debut EP Object Permanence and its accompanying deluxe version. Released in March, it featured sleeper hit “I’ll Take It”, which rapidly caught fire on TikTok — and earned her co-signs from Troye Sivan and Megan Skiendiel of KATSEYE. Hailing from the Pacific Northwest, she first cut her teeth within Vancouver’s local music scene, turning heads for her free-flowing prose, Y2K-indebted visuals, and mythos-tinted autobiography. Coupling lyricism inspired by her everyday life with patchwork aesthetics infused with the spontaneous, DIY ethos of homemade digicam videos, Stel has already been championed by PC Music legend A.G. Cook and also earned a spot on the The NME 100 this year. She is currently working on her debut album.