She brought the dark side to the Eras tour

Sofia Isella's unsettling electronic music carves out a gritty new lane in pop.

- BY AUGUST BROWN

SOFIA Isella, performing at a House of Blues, opened for Taylor Swift in the U.K.

(@OKAYNICOLITA)

It takes a certain composure, as a teenager, to walk out onto Taylor Swift’s stage in a sold-out stadium and play an opening set to tens of thousands of fans who have never heard of you.

But it takes even more conviction to use the occasion to play music almost guaranteed to leave them squirming — grimy, bloodletting noise-rock and electro about being a sexual menace and growing disillusioned with God.

The — now-20-year-old singer-songwriter Sofia Isella did that last year, opening on the U.K. run of Swift's Eras tour. “Taylor was an angel for allowing me to share that stage,” L.A.-raised Isella said. “I wish I could have recorded that feeling. But the show itself is not as nerve-racking as it is playing for 20 people. There’s something about a giant room that almost feels a little dissociative, like it’s not really happening or it’s not really there.”

“Dissociative” is a decent descriptor for Isella’s music, too — disorienting, unnerving, drawing out emotions you might not understand. But there’s so much skill in the performances and imagination in her arrangements that they may well get Isella — who played the Fonda Theater earlier this month — onto much bigger stages of her own, just as the world gets much bleaker around her.

“This next record, I'm having so much fun with s—that’s really f— dark,” Isella said. “It’s like, the only way to stop screaming about it is to have a moment laughing about it.”