Baby Nova serves Shhugar by the spoonful, a provocative dose of dream-pop medicine for her own life.

The first time you hear Baby Nova’s coquettish, smoky tones, you might swear the 28-year-old was born decades before her time. A cinematic reel starts to play in your mind. Priscilla Presley twirling in a doo-wop dress. Lace gloves and unfastened suspenders. Loaded guns. Rosary beads snagged on scarlet nail polish. 

Then the small-town innocence of her daisy-chain purr gives way to an impish bite: ‘Could have just had sex with me, didn’t have to fuck me so hard’, she snipes on break out hit “Killed For Sport”, detailing a friendship betrayal that forces her to uproot and move city. The fantasy wavers, becoming a strange knot of white noise and static. Though the material could easily elicit another season of Euphoria, what feels like a script reveals itself as something far more personal. Baby Nova’s music trades in imagery, but the stories underneath it are real.

Before Baby Nova there was little Kayleigh O’Connor, who grew up beside the steel-blue sea and candy-striped lighthouses of Canada’s salty, maritime province: Nova Scotia. She always knew she wanted to sing. The Catholic upbringing she was raised in gave her community, but it never quite fit the soul she’d been handed. Instead, she worshipped at the altar of nostalgia: Dusty Springfield, Lou Reed, Quentin Tarantino… 

At 12 years old, what she now calls a “Disney scam” arrived on her family home’s doorstep. A supposed audition to become the next Hannah Montana, a glittering portal to Los Angeles. The opportunity turned out to be exactly that, a con, and the Hollywood hills remained a distant mirage. So she wrote. And wrote. For more than fifteen years. The last seven spent couch-hopping between cities, holding onto the idea that the songs would eventually find a home.

The name Baby Nova arrived through a mixture of necessity and geography. “Baby” from a stint sugar-dating to make rent. “Nova” from the province that raised her. There were record deals signed, then dissolved. Singles uploaded, then quickly removed. Last year, on the brink of quitting altogether after finally moving to Los Angeles, she decamped to her friend Nate’s house and wrote more than thirty songs in a matter of weeks. A feverish outpouring that became her debut album, Shhugar.

Across twelve tracks she braids Americana, folk and dream-pop into something both devotional and defiant. Desire arrives besuited in the language of faith, dancing freely between confession and flirtation. The sacred arrives in a tangle of thorns with the sinful. Sex, heartbreak, betrayal and healing are provocatively pinned to the cross, not as penance but as something to bear witness to, and rise from again.

“Great White Sharks”, the album’s lead single, was written during a night when she checked herself into a mental health centre during a bout of severe depression. ‘Before I fall to pieces, kiss me once like you mean it / Might be the drugs, but you look just like Jesus,’ she sings. Elsewhere, “Do You Like That, Baby?” and “Death Wish” lean into her now signature mock-religious imagery, pairing it with lines that seem to wink and beckon a drink at a speakeasy’s bar. ‘The way he bends me over, I don’t think that boy’s a Christian,’ she croons on the former. The cocaine-dusted imagery of the latter – which also features a nod to how good she is at oral sex (‘I was on my knees in his bedroom, givin’ him head/(He says I’m the best at it)) – reportedly led to half her family momentarily blocking her on Instagram.

If pop stardom is the goal, her fearless candour and unflinching wit, delivered with a fist and a fuck-you chat-up line, might just be the ticket. She has the knack of blending the sad-girl mystique of early Lana Del Rey with the blush-inducing cheek of Sabrina Carpenter and the diaristic sprawl of Ethel Cain.

The Lana comparisons arrive easily. The cinematic melancholy. The VHS take on Americana. The sense of romance hovering around the wreckage, polishing the bruise. Better yet, Baby Nova does not seem especially concerned with that. Truth sits underneath all of her storytelling. Shhugar is pulled directly from lived experience and, as the record unfolds, bitter-tasting lyrics gradually give way to something softer: humour, forgiveness, even joy. ‘Fuck this city for making you feel crazy/Halos in your eyes, bright lights through the tears/Kiss bye-bye to those bitches in the rear view/You’re too pretty for Buffalo’ she resolves on penultimate track “Too Pretty For Buffalo”. Track by track she stitches herself back together, healing a little more every time. Shhugar becomes a faith all of her own, and we realise it’s herself she’s started to believe in. Perhaps the fantasy we felt when we first heard her songs has been edging closer to her real life all along.

Wonderland slips into her DMs to talk about the making of Shhugar, performing songs this personal, and the tracks she holds closest.

@ellabardsley_: Hey Baby Nova! Sorry for the early message…are you a morning person?

@babynova: Hi!! I am, I love the morning 🙂 Unfortunately for my sleep schedule, I also love the night haha.

@ellabardsley_: What does your ideal morning look like?

@babynova: My ideal morning is going for a walk to get a coffee.

@ellabardsley_: What’s your coffee order?

@babynova: I’m honestly so basic with my coffee, I love getting a whole milk latte and a croissant. And/or a breaky [sandwich].

@ellabardsley_: I’m a basic matcha girl. 

@babynova: Oh I’ve been trying to get on the matcha train.

@ellabardsley_: What was the story of how you were first discovered?

@babynova: I was first discovered at 12, which is a whole thing. It was one of those weird, small-town scouting Disney scam ordeals, but it did give me enough false confidence to really go for it.

@ellabardsley_: Where were you born, where were you raised, and where are you now based?

@babynova: I was born and raised in Nova Scotia! And I just moved to Los Angeles this year 🙂 

@ellabardsley_: I read that your artist moniker was inspired by Nova Scotia. How did you end up landing on Baby Nova?

@babynova: It was inspired by Nova Scotia! When I was hustling and bustling and first coming out to LA, I was unfortunately using it as a moniker for a sugar babying website because I was so hard on cash and my roommate was doing it. That’s partially why [I] ended up calling the album Shhugar and it also inspired songs like “Broke Bitch Boogie”. I was young and insane haha.

@ellabardsley_: Did using that moniker for the website ever complicate your relationship with owning it publicly later?

@babynova: Oh no not at all, it was very informal.

@ellabardsley_: What else inspired the album’s title?

@babynova: It’s mostly inspired by that! But to me, that was kinda this focal point in my life and the circumstances I encountered trying to make something happen for myself. Getting out of Nova-Scotia was not an easy task for me and I went through a lot of life experiences  through that time that shaped me. The album is very autobiographical of my 20s in that way.

@ellabardsley_: So the album is a kind of open diary? What else was happening IRL when you wrote this album? And did writing it offer a sense of clarity or catharsis on some of those experiences of your 20s?

@babynova: Oh girl. So much has happened haha.

@ellabardsley_: Haha too much to type?

@babynova: It really is an open diary. I was so naive coming into the industry (and just the world) and I very quickly found myself around people with not the best intentions. I also went through a lot with my mental health throughout that time which I write a lot about.

@ellabardsley_: The album is so beautifully and poetically written, and the lyrics so visual that it plays like a film in your head. What was your writing process like for this record?

@babynova: Awh thank you🥹. I feel like when I sat down to write it, it really did pour out of me. I met my producer Gus [van Go] in Toronto, and we wrote “Too Pretty For Buffalo” that first day, and then most of the songs were written in just the few weeks following that. I think “Killed for Sport” and “Too Pretty” were written just a day apart. Most of my process involved just staring at a wall for a very long time, it all kinda comes together in my head.

@ellabardsley_: Was it always shaped as 12 tracks or were there some that didn’t make the cut?

@babynova: Hehehe. There are so many songs. We wrote probably around 30 for the record. But I have a sneaking suspicion they will see the light of day soon…

@ellabardsley_: 👀

@babynova: Hahaha.

@ellabardsley_: What’s your favourite track on the album and why?

@babynova: My personal favourite record is probably “Great White Sharks” just because it’s so personal and I’m very proud of my lyrics on that song. But the most fun to sing live is probably “Death Wish”.

@ellabardsley_: I love the lyrics to “Great White Sharks”. What makes a lyric stand out to you? What’s the difference between a good and a great lyric?

@babynova: So one thing I always do when I’m writing is I’ll try and ask myself about how I feel towards the thing I’m talking about, and then I’ll write that down. Then I scratch it out and I’ll ask myself: ‘But how do you actually feel?’ I think when I achieve that level of honesty in my writing, I feel very proud of it. I think I also like when I find ways to use words people aren’t used to hearing in songs like, for example, I put the word ‘Zamboni’ in a song yesterday, and that was very satisfying haha.

@ellabardsley_: Haha I just had to look up what that was. I love your explanation of the words needing to be honest. Would you say you and Baby Nova are one and the same person or is there a distinction?

@babynova: Hmm that’s a good question. I think Baby Nova is like a part of me, but there’s also the Nova-Scotia, kinda homegrown and honestly, very shy person inside me as well.

@ellabardsley_: So would you say, being shy IRL, music is your most confident mouthpiece?

@babynova: Yes most definitely. I find it way easier to talk through music.

@ellabardsley_: Who was the first person you shared this album with when it was finished?

@babynova: The first person I shared it with was my best friend Nate, who honestly deserves an award because he let me stay with him for the entire making of the record. He is the best hype-man.

@ellabardsley_: Shout out to Nate! What was his reaction?

@babynova: He loved it! I have videos of him dancing around to it ‘cause I would come home everyday and play him the newest creation. He would also just stare at me with his jaw on the ground over certain lines – I’m sure you can probably guess which ones lol.

@ellabardsley_: ‘The way he bends me over I don’t think that boys a Christian’ [from “Do You Like That, Baby?” comes to mind – one of my favourites.

@babynova: Hahaha yes. That’s definitely one of them, also I did a show in Toronto, and everyone sang that line to me and it was genuinely the best moment of my life and so fire to hear a room full of people saying that haha😂.

@ellabardsley_: When you think of your listeners, what’s the kind of ideal setting you imagine them listening to Shhugar in?

@babynova: I would say that, first listen, I would love it if people played it in their cars while they were alone. It’s kinda a heavy album so I think that’s the best way to enjoy it.

@ellabardsley_: Me and my friend Allie sat at the pub in silence listening and then we’d get to the end of the album, and we’d be like ‘Sorry, actually, can’t talk to you. Let’s listen again.’ It’s got this sort of addictive romanticism to it, although it’s also heavy and unpacks a lot of complex themes that anyone experiencing being a woman in this world can sadly relate to. I also love the antagonism between the religious imagery and sex, devotion and desire, love and hate, lust and worship, power and submission, saints and sinners…and I feel like this idea of antagonistic imagery is such an undercurrent of your work. Is that fair? Can you talk about why that tension was a touchstone of the record?

@babynova: You know I feel like the sort of push and pull of those themes wasn’t so much of an intentional choice but more so because those things are always at odds in my own head because of how I grew up, who I am now, and just the mixed feelings I have towards a lot of my own experiences. But on a creative front, I have always found that what makes things really beautiful is when they don’t really go together at all or when they feel out of place.

@ellabardsley_: That’s why I think it quite reminds me of Sofia Coppola’s work. I wonder what art/book/film/music was also inspiring you as you made it?

@babynova: Awh that makes me so happy [insert red heart and crying face emoji]! Yes, I love Sofia Coppola. I’m extremely inspired by a lot of female creatives. Musically, it was Kate Bush, Lana Del Rey, and Dusty Springfield. I also was getting ‘90s film education from Nate every night, so we would watch like The Virgin Suicides, Jawbreaker, and that sort of stuff. Off topic, I miss ‘90s movies and the textures and everything. I’m not a fan of these extremely high definition, almost AI-looking movies. But Paul Thomas Anderson went off this year with One Battle After Another. I was so excited for that ‘cause Boogie Nights was a masterpiece.

@ellabardsley_: Virgin Suicides is one of my favourite films. If this album could soundtrack any movie or TV show, what would be the dream?

@babynova: Honestly, anything with Nicole Kidman [in it], I just think she’s fantastic. Nine Perfect Strangers was such a great show. Also like a Quentin Tarantino film would be so cool just because I feel like the palette of the music would really fit that aesthetic. Umm basically any A24 film ever made also. I love movies! I wish I could act so bad. 

@ellabardsley_: So with your love of movies, can we expect music videos will become a central pillar to your artistry?

@babynova: Yes, definitely! I love visuals almost as much as the music itself. And I really enjoy collaborating with talented creatives in other fields. I hope I get to do soooo much more of that.

@ellabardsley_: Baby Nova x Nadia Lee Cohen would be UNREAL.

@babynova: I. WOULD. SIMPLY. PASS. AWAY. I would die to work with Nadia Lee Cohen and Petra Collins.

@ellabardsley_: MANIFESTING. Are you comfortable to talk a bit more about why how you grew up affected the record and its making? I wondered if you had a religious upbringing because there’s a lot in this album that points to that?

@babynova: Yeah I grew up Catholic, not that I’m religious now, but it definitely shaped me when I was young. I think I was always a bit eccentric for my environment as a kid and I wanted to explore.

@ellabardsley_: How does it no longer being in your life shape you now? What’s your relationship status to Catholicism now?

@babynova: Well obviously, I don’t have any problems with people being Catholic. I have a lot of people in my life who are religious and they are wonderful people. However, I also have a lot of people in my life who have been, in some way, discriminated against by the church and that’s a huge issue to me. I have my own views on organised religion as a whole, but what really matters to me is just, at the end of the day, if you are a kind hearted, open-minded person, then what someone believes in is their business. I just know for me personally, Catholicism didn’t fully align with my values or views at the end of the day. I’m still a highly spiritual person though and I do think that came from being exposed to religion as a kid in some ways.

@ellabardsley_: Sonically, this album feels like a blend of pop with folk and Americana. How would you describe your sound and what you’re striving for?

@babynova: That’s a good question! I think my sound will be ever evolving, but it will probably always have an acoustic edge to it because I love live-sounding music. Like I love the way old records would breathe. And I have to say, I’m still working on this, but I’m kinda over autotune. I don’t love the sound of it and I honestly like when I can really hear the slide of a vocal or little moments of imperfection. I think with the AI era incoming, we will see simultaneously a push for things to become much more real on one side of the fence. That is my hypothesis haha 😂.

@ellabardsley_: Speaking of live-sounding music, what are your touring plans for this album? (Fingers crossed for the UK!)

@babynova: Eeeee I’m definitely working on and cooking some stuff up, nothing to announce yet, but there will be shows 🙂 

@ellabardsley_: I’m not sure if you ever dive into Reddit, but people are obsessed with your voice. You’ve drawn some comparisons to Lana Del Rey. Being that she’s one of your inspirations, how does that make you feel?

@babynova: Awhh I do look sometimes but people can be kinda mean sometimes too, so I try to stay out of it a little bit. But that’s very sweet to hear 🥹❤️. Yes, I do get the Lana comparison a lot. I got so many texts about this yesterday with the stove pictures that were released. My take on it is pretty straightforward – I love it. I grew up listening to Lana religiously, and I will always have so much admiration for her. She inspired me so much throughout my life and it makes all the sense in the world that her sound would bleed through mine. She will always be the architect or the space that has allowed me to become the artist I am, and I am so grateful for that. Lana is mother. The only thing I don’t like is when they say I’m copying her look with my brown hair haha. MY hair is very thin and naturally brown and I’m just trying not to fry it off y’all. Hahahahaha.

@ellabardsley_: Let’s also manifest a future collab with Lana. 

@babynova: No, we are manifesting. There is no greater collab dream in my mind. I would simply not be well if that happened. I would die of sheer excitement, I fear.

@ellabardsley_: Hahaha. So, with the success of this album, and you being named a Spotify 2026 Artist to Watch, where do you go from here? What’s the dream? And are you straight back into the next project?

@babynova: I am straight back into the next project. I love making music. The first single of the second record is going to drop in the next few weeks❤️. I think the dream for me is to just put out as many records as possible, tour lots, maybe make a movie some day. Get a dog, move to Costa Rica and be able to fly people to come make more records with me haha. Spend a lot of time splish-splashing around in the water.

@ellabardsley_: Who are some artists or famous fans who’ve been supporting your journey so far?

@babynova: Hmm I don’t know a ton of famous people but Nessa Barrett has been so supportive and I’ve been lucky enough to work with her a little bit – also Carter Faith and the Nashville girlies. Kate Hudson as well!

@ellabardsley_: And how have you emotionally found the reaction to Shhugar? Was it anything you expected?

@babynova: It was above and beyond what I could’ve ever hoped for and I’m very lucky because I’ve been able to really form close relationships with a lot of the early supporters and fans of the music which has been very fulfilling.

@ellabardsley_: Thank you so much for chatting with me and taking the time. I am so in love with this album (I am about to put it on for the millionth time as I walk to the tube).

@babynova: Okay thank you girl!! So nice chatting❤️ have the best day 🙂

Words by Ella Bardsley