Summer Can Wait: Baby Jane's ‘Winter Forever’ Arrives
Photo credit: David Nikolic
For Baby Jane, the moniker of Sofia Bella Galuz, her music has never existed in isolation. Her sophomore album Winter Forever arrives on July 10, and the Los Angeles artist had already begun constructing the mythology surrounding it long before the record was completed. Galuz started writing songs at 13, left high school to be homeschooled so she could focus on music, and later discovered electronic production almost accidentally through DJing.
“Me starting to write songs in the Tumblr era and being a super big fan of alternative music, but then also very heavily sonically inspired by electronic music... I think that's become kind of its own thing. The Baby Jane entity has been formed through all of these different twists and turns.” Across music videos inspired by Silent Hill and Resident Evil, references to forgotten films, occult imagery, abandoned industrial landscapes, and a sprawling Discord community known as "The Coven," every piece of the Baby Jane project is a bridge into the fantasy that she’s created.
She’s crafting an ambitious vision, particularly for an artist whose ascent has happened largely outside of traditional industry pathways. Since the release of 2025's A Grave Marked Strange, Baby Jane has cultivated a devoted online audience through viral singles, a breakout HÖR Berlin performance, and a hybrid approach to electronic music that freely collides hardstyle, trance, synthwave, dream pop, and goth aesthetics paired with elaborate lore.
"I think every time I finish a project, I know that it's done because I have a name for the next one," . "When I was finishing A Grave Marked Strange, I already knew I wanted to call the next one Winter Forever."
The title itself had lingered in her mind for years, first appearing as a recurring caption beneath social media posts before becoming intertwined with Lilya 4-ever, the devastating 2002 Swedish film whose bleak atmosphere centers on a teenage girl abandoned by her mother in the post-Soviet Republic of Estonia. “The atmosphere of that movie set the tone for where I started the album. I try to stay cohesive and keep the suspension of disbelief, so I like to draw inspiration from something like a little bit bizarre or niche."
Cinematic influences run throughout nearly every aspect of Baby Jane's work, including her name, which is a reference to the iconic Bette Davis and Joan Crawford film Whatever Happened to Baby Jane . While her music draws from electronic subgenres both old and new, she often looks beyond music for inspiration.
"Lyrically and visually, for sure," she says. "Especially if you're trying to build a visual identity on top of music. You kind of need both right now to feel cohesive as a project." That cohesion has become one of Baby Jane's defining strengths. Rather than chasing rapidly changing online aesthetics, she's intentionally built an identity that exists somewhere between gothic fashion editorial and found-footage horror. Think the grainy forests of The Blair Witch Project, early internet message boards, abandoned houses, and the foggy mist of survival horror games.
Photo credit: David Nikolic
"The whole Baby Jane character has its own fashion sense and universe that it lives in," she explains. "I always try to wear really blank primary colours and things that are basic, but a little gothic, so you can't really tell when it was shot. I want people to look back and not really be able to tell when these photos were taken." It's an interesting philosophy at a time when artists are often encouraged to keep pace with internet trends. Instead, Baby Jane seems more interested in creating something that exists outside of them.
Her fan community, affectionately known as "The Coven," exists on a Discord server where listeners discuss new releases. Members sort themselves into original archetypes through an online quiz before entering different sections of the community, each accompanied by its own spiritual identity. The concept emerged from Baby Jane's own fascination with religious studies, witchcraft, and occult history. "I came up with this spiritual manifesto that's based on these three archetypes," she says. "People take a quiz, they sort themselves into one of the archetypes [The Cowboy, The Warrior, and The Goddess], and then they join the Discord and can see everyone else who's in the same one."
Rather than functioning as roleplay or marketing, she describes the community as something rooted in self-discovery. "It's very positive," she explains. "It's not, 'Be afraid and follow these rules.' It's empowerment, getting to know yourself and connecting to something that gives you a sense of faith."
Meeting members of The Coven during her recent tour only reinforced how deeply that connection runs. "It's funny because I make this hardstyle music," she laughs. "But they're very sensitive people. I feel deeply connected to them."
That sense of intimacy feels central to Winter Forever itself. While the record explores loneliness, isolation, and emotional desolation, it also documents the unexpected liberation Baby Jane found while creating it. As she explained when announcing the album, what began as an expression of solitude gradually became something much freer.
The newest single, "Midnight Highway," captures that emotional duality. Bathed in shimmering synths and trance-inspired melodies, it's a love song wrapped in darkness. Like much of Baby Jane's catalogue, horror aesthetics function to compliment the atmosphere—a way of heightening emotion rather than simply creating fear.
Although Baby Jane's audience has grown rapidly over the past year, she remains surprisingly hesitant to treat success as something that can be replicated through formulas. Her viral momentum surrounding "Eternal Embrace" and her now-iconic HÖR Berlin set, two moments she credits with turning music into her full-time career, but she’s become increasingly wary of trying to chase these moments.
"The instinct is to try to control and repeat how you found success in the past," she reflects. "But that's completely deaf. The only constant is change. You have to stay vulnerable and surrender to the process." It's an outlook that also informs how she thinks about the music industry more broadly. Rather than waiting for opportunities from established institutions, she encourages artists to build their own audiences and believes artists have more agency than ever before.. "If you have a phone, you have an opportunity," she says. "You can't give somebody the keys to your castle."
Offstage, I was surprised to learn how grounded of a presence she has for someone making euphoric, late-night dance music. Before heading out to play a rave that goes to the early hours of the morning, she's just as likely to be at home watching Love Island until it's time to leave for work. She doesn't drink or use drugs, preferring to stay present amid a scene often defined by excess. Like every other facet of the Baby Jane project, it's a reminder that the fantasy exists in the art, and balance is what it takes to maintain momentum.
When asked what she hopes listeners experience with Winter Forever, her answer immediately puts the listener in focus. "I hope they feel like they're being exposed to something new," she says. "I hope it's a singular experience that takes them out of what they're used to. I hope they feel a level of intimacy with it... and that they know that I see them." Behind every mist-covered visual and hard-hitting dance track is an artist searching for genuine connection and inviting her audience to find a piece of themselves there too.
Photo credit: David Nikolic
Winter Forever is out everywhere independently on July 10, 2026. Follow Baby Jane here.
