Written by Oliver Heffron
When Nep answers my Zoom call, she’s sitting in her car, fresh from a haircut and laughing about how she’s “recovering from getting my tonsils out at my parents’ house in Florida.” It’s an image that feels appropriately between worlds—half in motion, half in recovery—like much of her new album Noelle, out today via Harbour Artists & Music.
The 23-year-old indie-pop songwriter, who splits her time between Los Angeles and Daytona, has been quietly amassing a cult following for the past few years with a mix of sharp, confessional lyrics and winking self-awareness. On TikTok, she’s racked up millions of likes by posting demos that sound both diaristic and cinematic—songs that make heartbreak sound like a punchline whispered through glitter lip gloss. Noelle, her debut full-length, captures all of that energy but widens its frame: it’s a coming-of-age record, a self-portrait, and a love-hate letter to Florida.
“I grew up in this little beach town near Daytona,” she tells me. “Like, literally by a lighthouse on an inlet—a mile from the river, right on the beach. It was so much fun until we moved inland when I was ten, and I just didn’t fit in anymore. I was super quiet, I didn’t talk a lot, I didn’t feel like anybody understood what I was trying to do.”
That sense of isolation became fuel for creativity. Nep started writing songs in her bedroom, inspired by early YouTube artists like Cavetown. “They’d just set up this little mic, record everything at home, play the ukulele—it seemed achievable,” she says. “I literally bought the same ukulele Cavetown had. All my first recording gear was because of those videos.”
Photo Credit: Ibe Van Bouchaute
Her path to music wasn’t direct. For a while, she wanted to be a graphic designer, then a psychologist. “My sibling was like, why don’t you just look at sound engineering? I didn’t even know that was a thing,” she says. That discovery led her to the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami, where she met her future producer and best friend, Jake Sonderman. “We met at orientation because we were the nerds who wanted to see the mic closet,” she laughs.
Together, the pair built Noelle out of long nights in dorm rooms and improvised studios. “He’d call me at 2 a.m. like, ‘Just trust me, come over,’” she remembers. “And then he’d play me something insane and I’d either go, ‘Oh my god, that’s amazing,’ or ‘No, delete that.’ It’s really good to work with someone who cares as much as you do, where you can be honest like that.”
The album’s title comes from a character Nep created years ago through writing fanfiction about her favorite boy bands. “I wrote so much 5 Seconds of Summer and One Direction fanfic,” she admits. “Then I started changing the names but keeping the same characters. The main girl was always named Noelle. She’s kind of my alter ego—part me, part imaginary. Like, I’ll watch the Grammys and imagine her walking around meeting all these people, and then I’ll write about it.”
That hybrid of fantasy and autobiography defines Noelle. “All Around Beauty” captures the heartbreak of running into an ex at a college party; “Black Car Song” starts as a piano ballad before exploding into punk chaos; “Scar” ends with a rock breakdown Nep calls “the best idea anybody’s ever had—Jake’s idea, obviously.”
Her Florida upbringing hangs over it all, sometimes as an antagonist, sometimes as a muse. “Biketoberfest” is a bittersweet ode to her hometown’s infamous motorcycle rallies, which she didn’t love so much growing up: “I’d be sixteen, trying to get to class with my sunroof open, blasting music, and there’d be bikers next to me blaring these awful songs. They were ruining my vibe! But I think that feeling of being out of place really stuck with me.”
That tension—between shame and pride, alienation and belonging—comes to a head in “Florida Girl,” the album’s defiant closer and one of its most anthemic tracks. “The album is a lot of me hating on Florida,” she explains. “But I’m also defensive of it. Like, yeah, Florida’s crazy—fuck you, we’re crazy. Everyone makes mistakes, and sometimes you just have to own being a mess.”
The video for “Florida Girl” finds Nep leaning into that chaos at a dirt racetrack two hours north of L.A. “It was the best experience ever,” she says. “All the racers were so nice, giving us snacks and popsicles. I was literally running around in a bikini in a dirt pit while cars were crashing into each other—it was awesome.”
For all the energy and hilarity, there’s also something hopeful about Noelle. The album ends on the line, “I think I might love life again.” It’s a hopeful note from someone who’s spent years turning discomfort into melody. “I’m excited to move to L.A. and not try to fit in,” Nep says. “Every time I’ve moved, I’ve felt like I had to prove myself. Now I live with Jake and our friend Emma, and they already know who I am. I’m just ready to make music and play shows.”
Those shows begin November 4 at The Echo in Los Angeles, followed by Boston and New York. She’s especially excited for Boston—“I’ve never played there before”—and for performing “Scar” live. “That one’s gonna be hard not to cry during,” she admits.
When I ask how it feels to finally release Noelle after writing it during her senior year, Nep smiles. “It’s kind of like I’m leaving Florida behind,” she says. “But it’s still everywhere in the songs. Even if I’m in L.A., I’ll always have that little bit of the crazy Florida girl in me.”
With Noelle, Nep isn’t just introducing herself—she’s closing one chapter and opening another. The kid writing fanfiction by a lighthouse has grown into a songwriter capable of turning that inner world into something universal. “Scars become anthems,” she sings. It’s not just a lyric—it’s her whole origin story.