Nep - Noelle

In a world where pop stars are often carefully curated products of image and polish, Nep feels like a glorious act of rebellion. Her debut album, Noelle—out October 24, 2025, via Harbour Artists & Music—is the sound of a young artist telling her story exactly how she wants to tell it: unfiltered, funny, aching, and deeply human. It’s the culmination of years spent transforming her Daytona upbringing into something both mythic and messy—a love-hate letter to home that doubles as her coming-of-age soundtrack.

Nep’s world is one of contradictions. She grew up surrounded by bike rallies, sunburns, and small-town noise, yet always knew she’d leave. “Beaches are fucked, Daytona sucks,” she sneers on "Biketoberfest," a track that manages to sound both cathartic and nostalgic. There’s humour in her defiance, but also tenderness—a clear sign that while she’s moved on, she’ll never fully shake where she came from. That push and pull between escape and remembrance defines Noelle’s emotional core.

Written during her senior year at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music alongside her close friend and collaborator Jake Sonderman, Noelle feels like a diary cracked open. The songs move through heartbreak, identity, and rebirth with startling intimacy, as if Nep is narrating directly from her dorm room floor. Sonically, she refuses to settle into a single lane—indie-pop, alt-rock, and folk textures intertwine across the record, each track expanding her world a little further.

"All Around Beauty" turns a college party into a melodramatic fever dream—all blue tongues, Jell-O shots, and teary bathroom reflections—while "Noelle," the title track, strips everything back to a haunting string arrangement and bare emotion. Her delivery on lines like “I was a kid / You were a guy / It’s not fair / I was a girl” cuts deep, a quiet moment of confrontation that reveals her gift for turning personal pain into universal truth.

"Daytona," the album’s centrepiece, explodes with rock intensity and defiant energy, its guitars buzzing like engines at full throttle. The accompanying music video, pieced together from fan-submitted clips, transforms her private story into a communal one—a cathartic anthem for anyone who’s ever needed to get out of their hometown to find themselves. Later, "Black Car Song" morphs from piano ballad to an entirely punk-driven eruption, while the song "Scar" begins with a bluegrass lilt before detonating into rock-tinged chaos—a sonic metaphor for how relationships can shift from harmony to heartbreak in a heartbeat.

By the time "July (It Feels So Lovely To Cry)" swells with horns and indie rock cinematic grandeur, Nep sounds like someone stepping into her next chapter with open arms. And that chapter is beautifully summarized in the closer, "Florida Girl." A tongue-in-cheek yet fiercely empowering anthem, it finds Nep reclaiming her identity: “You can never break a Florida girl.” It’s messy, loud, unapologetic—and perfect.

Beyond the music, Noelle captures the essence of a generation raised online yet yearning for something real. Nep’s early TikTok demos—rough, vulnerable, and hilarious—earned her millions of likes and a devoted fanbase that followed her from the internet to sold-out shows in L.A., New York, and Chicago. That same authenticity courses through this debut album; it feels less like a polished product and more like a journal entry set to melody.

Noelle is both a farewell and a beginning. It’s Nep leaving Daytona behind while immortalizing it in song, confronting the scars of youth, and celebrating the strange beauty of becoming yourself. In her hands, heartbreak turns into art, pain turns into punchlines, and home becomes something you carry with you—even when you’re finally free of it.

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Check out more from Nep: Instagram | SoundCloud | Spotify | TikTok | Website | YouTube | Apple Music