Sofia and the Antoinettes finds divinity in heartache with hymn-like single “Hi My Love”

There’s a certain type of heartbreak that only reveals itself once enough time has passed, less acute than the immediate aftershock, yet still unsettling enough to play on your mind. After 2025's WOMEN WHO LOVE TOO MUCH EP, “Hi My Love”, the newest single from East London's Sofia and the Antoinettes, exists in that liminal space. Written years before its release, the track feels less like a message sent and more like one finally laid to rest.

“I wrote it when it had been a year since we hadn’t spoken,” Sofia explains, relatively casually. “But now, by the time it’s coming out, it’s been about three years. It’s been a long time coming, it just needed to be said.” That distance carries weight, as rather than reopening healed wounds, “Hi My Love” captures the moment of reflection after having healed.

Much of the song was written in the early hours of the morning, alone at the piano, before Sofia had any expectation that anyone else would hear it. “This was really just for myself,” she says. “I wasn’t thinking about London, or scenes, or audiences. It was just me crying and needing to get it out.” That raw authenticity is audible throughout: the track unfolds patiently, resisting any temptation to dramatise its own sadness.

Sofia deliberately kept key moments, particularly a choral, hymn-like pre-chorus, unteased ahead of the single’s release. “I wanted people to actually sit with it,” she explains. “There’s a lot about seeing love as religion, which really only happens in unhealthy loves.” The religious imagery of “Hi My Love” isn’t merely aesthetic window dressing; it’s rooted deeply in Sofia’s own personal history.

Raised around Italian Catholicism, Sofia spent much of her younger years rejecting religion, before gradually returning to it on her own terms following a personal loss. That shift, shaped by grief, redefined how she understands faith and devotion. On “Hi My Love,” those ideas blur into romantic attachment, as prayer becomes unanswered texts, and silence stretches into something vast and echoing. When asked to visualise the song’s world, Sofia doesn’t hesitate: “It’s an empty church.”

What’s striking is how removed she now feels from the person the song was originally about. “I couldn’t care less about him,” she rather unceremoniously admits. “He’ll hear it and know it’s about him, but I’m fine.” Instead, the track feels addressed to a former version of herself, the one who still needed answers and closure, or a response that never came.

Whilst Sofia’s earlier releases leaned more so into feelings of sadness and tenderness, her more recent writing has embraced anger too, something she once believed there “wasn’t a place for” in her music. “That’s a female thing,” she asserts, “thinking that no one wants to hear you scream.” Allowing herself to channel that rage in her music has fundamentally changed how she uses her voice, both technically and emotionally.

Despite the upbeat production and self-assured vocals, Sofia remains adamant that lyricism comes first. “I’m striving to be a poet more than a musician,” she says. “That’s what I listen for. That’s what I want to be good at.” As she continues to release music written across different periods of her life, she affectionately refers to her songs as her “children”, each one shaped by the collaborators involved and the version of herself that created them.

For listeners discovering her now, that openness feels like an invitation rather than a puzzle. You’re not expected to understand everything immediately, just to listen closely. Sofia is leaving the door of that empty church ajar, trusting that the right people will step inside. “I’m really happy it’s coming out,” she says simply. “I can’t let go of that part of me until it is.”