There is a moment, halfway through our conversation, when Stella Bennett – better known as New Zealand singer-songwriter Benee – pauses and says: “Sometimes it’s okay to not know why I’m here; I’m just here and I feel lucky.”

She says it lightly, but not dismissively – like someone who has arrived at that sentence only after worrying it into the ground. Then she adds, cheerfully: “So yeah, I’ve got to have a good party on this rock.”

That oscillation – between existential vertigo and impish delight – feels like the governing logic of Benee's second album Ur an Angel I'm Just Particles, which debuted last November. It’s the same tension that has always animated her work, but sharpened now, more conscious of itself.

Bennett is calling me from Los Angeles, where she’s been living for the last three years, though she talks about the city as though she's still finding a way to call it home. “It’s winter here,” she says over Zoom, parked on her couch and backgrounded by a tree-lined window. “But I expected it to be a little colder when I came back from New Zealand a week ago.” L.A., in her telling, is still a little too big, too strange, too morally ambiguous to be truly comfortable in. “It's so different to where I'm from. Anything you can imagine that’s weird and fucked up – you’ll see it in L.A.,” she says. “It can be very confronting and also pretty sad.”

She moved here from her hometown of Auckland and admits it was “a bit of a culture shock.” These days she calls Echo Park home – a neighbourhood she jokes is a “slightly less flashy version of Silver Lake,” full of “really cute bars and restaurants.” Still, she isn’t sure she has entirely settled in. The move, she tells me, cracked open a fissure of existentialism that runs through her new record. “I flew to L.A. and got an apartment here and started living in the States, and I think the album was the product of moving, feeling too much and then trying to centre myself and find some kind of peace in, you know, feeling completely out of control,” she says. “That was such a crazy shift – as anyone who’s moved away from home, especially to another country, will tell you.”

"The album was the product of moving, feeling too much and then trying to centre myself and find some kind of peace in, you know, feeling completely out of control."

This “existential rabbit hole”, as she calls it, ultimately carried the album. Even the title – Ur an Angel I'm Just Particles – feels like a meditation on the divine versus the earthly, on longing for transcendence while remaining tethered to the body. In simpler terms, the upheaval of moving country made her question everything – from where she belonged to what she believed in – and those doubts slowly worked their way into lyrics and melodies. What started as the practical stress of setting up a new life turned into something deeper, shaping an album about feeling unmoored, searching for meaning, and trying to make peace with not having all the answers yet.

Many of the track titles gesture toward the spiritual – from Prey4U to Demons and Heaven. And as we talk, I begin to notice another fixation emerging: Bennett is preoccupied – intensely – with scale. We talk about planets. Microorganisms. The infinite. Moon hotels for billionaires. Stephen Hawking. Astrology. The afterlife. She describes zooming in on matter until it dissolves into particles, zooming out until Earth becomes a mere freckle.

“I’ve always been fascinated by space and science,” she tells me, though she laments she wasn't better at the subject in school. I query whether her enchantment with the stars extends to the realm of astrology (Bennett is an Aquarius – having recently celebrated a birthday at the end of January). "I don’t really know an awful lot about it, but I'm down with astrology," she says. "It all makes perfect sense as well. I’ve really got to stay away from some signs – and I always become friends with Aries and Pisces." As an Aquarian, she feels aligned with most of the sign's quintessential traits: "Creative, imaginative..." she muses affirmatively, before laughing: "I thought that everyone loved us for a while, and then I was like, ‘Oh, shoot – that's one of our toxic traits'!"

Yet astrology is only one facet of a much broader, more unruly cosmology. Bennett’s preoccupation with the universe isn’t limited to physics or birth charts; it stretches toward something far more unknowable. “This idea of the infinite that we just have no idea about – I'm often asking questions that I need to find the answers for.” But her curiosity doesn't come across as clinical; it’s restless, playful, sprawling.

“This idea of the infinite that we just have no idea about – I'm often asking questions that I need to find the answers for.”

"When I was making the album, I had this sense of wonder. I was tackling such a huge theme, and I think it was in response to feeling really existential and overwhelmed with the world. I felt like I was leaning on that childlike innocence – of looking at the world through the lens of a five-year-old." She added that this perspective influenced the kinds of symbolism she found herself gravitating toward. "Like, you know when you see a flower growing out of concrete? I love that," Bennett says. "I just feel like that's such a metaphor – how did you get in there?"

That instinct resurfaces in the way she describes writing sessions for the album. “I was definitely going into my sessions like, ‘Guys! What are we actually doing on this rock?’” she laughs. “Probably just sounding like a lunatic.” But instead of grounding her, collaborators joined the spiral. “It was really interesting hearing everyone’s perspective… I realised we’re all united by this sense of having no clue what is going on in the world. No one actually really knows. You can freak out about it – and it can become very, very scary – but then I found this weird sense of peace.”

And you can see that sentiment of awe and insignificance coexisting in perfect tension throughout her lyricism. On Princess, she shrugs at the chaos with This place is crazy / so I'll do as I please, while Animal zooms out even further – Think I'm special but I'm not / 'Cause I'm tiny like a dot – distilling Bennett’s cosmic spirals into lines that feel light on their feet but heavy with implication.

However, the record’s most intimate moment arrives at its end with the track Heaven, written for her Grandfather. “After death… it’s such a crazy concept,” she says slowly. “Losing someone when you’re an adult is a different kind of feeling. After he died, I would just think about him every day, and it would make me smile,” she tells me. “There was this part of him always being kept alive, like a memory.”

The song does not propose theology so much as possibility – Bennett singing: I search for you in the clouds / I had a visit from a brown bird / Was that you?. When I ask what she believes happens after death, she circles through possibilities: birds, symbols, heaven, agnosticism. “I don’t really have any idea what’s going to happen after death. I’d say I’m pretty agnostic," she tells me. "Heaven is a nice way to think about it though… like, maybe I see you in a bird? Maybe all of these symbols in life reflect a life after death.”

“I don’t really have any idea what’s going to happen after death. I’d say I’m pretty agnostic,"

But she's quick to lighten the mood: “I also wanted to turn into a dolphin.” Later she revises: maybe a seal. Or in a past life, perhaps a seagull.

And if existential dread is one axis of the album, nature and the sublime are on the other. “I’ve always been very one with nature. I love the trees,” she says, laughing before insisting she means it. “If I don’t go to a beach every now and then, I get a little bit depressed… nature has a huge role in my mental health.”

She laments to me that, in a sprawling city like L.A., communion with water requires planning and hours-long traffic, so she hasn’t gone swimming yet. “It’s not… it’s not that nice,” she says diplomatically. Instead, she prefers to go for a hike (which feels like the most Los Angeles solution possible).

Bennett’s visual universe has always mirrored her lyrical one: intimate, uncanny – like something out of a Lynchian fever dream. Whether she’s holding a baby lamb while spectating a mud wrestling match in the Sad Boii music video, or nude and body-painted glittering silver for Off The Rails, it feels as though Bennett is perpetually generating aesthetic spectacles – each one meticulously strange, and demanding of our short attention spans. To encounter her work is to cross an invisible threshold and plunge headlong into an enigmatic, unknowable wonderland. When I ask whether she’s always gravitated toward such jarring imagery, she answers with a decisive "Yes".

“I’m very involved,” she says simply. “I consider it an extension of the art since I'm such a visual learner. When I’m writing, I’m always thinking of the imagery.” Her inspirations are just as eclectic. They range from the kitschy menace of the Piracy is a Crime trailer that once preceded her childhood Blockbuster rentals, to far more tactile fantasies: "I have a song called Vegas on the album, and I think it would be a really nice idea to, obviously, go to Vegas and maybe even get fake engaged. You can get, like, Michael Jackson as a celebrant."

At other times, the concepts arrive with complete and almost mythic clarity. “With the Princess music video, I had this vision of a pink bouncy castle in a field in the middle of nowhere. It was just… surreal. And then, when you zoom in, there's actually a bad bitch rave happening inside.” (If that sounded too specific to be real, the music video is waiting for you on YouTube.)

"I have a song called Vegas on the album, and I think it would be a really nice idea to, obviously, go to Vegas and maybe even get fake engaged. You can get, like, Michael Jackson as a celebrant."

Our conversation then drifts to the shifting terrain of music videos in today’s industry, where shrinking budgets have dulled both their prevalence and ambition. We remark how artists like Billie Eilish are keeping the artform alive, and concede that it’s frustrating labels no longer bankroll visuals with the same extravagance. But Bennett insists that limitation can sharpen ingenuity: "Sometimes the DIY vibe can still get you a cooler video than those with multi-million-dollar budgets," she says. "It’s really just about having a good idea." She recalls flipping through channels in a Polish hotel room while touring last year and landing on MTV, mesmerised by a run of back-to-back 90s clips. "I was just playing music video after music video. I thought it was so sick."

Bennett's fashion follows the same maximalist logic. She tells me she's been obsessed lately with Harajuku. “In Tokyo, people are just so unafraid to express themselves,” she says. “Why not go all in and hard out?” During our call, while flipping her camera around to show me one of the canvases crowding her walls (a painting by Terry Hoff, whom she collaborated with on the artwork for her first album, Hey u x), the camera unexpectedly swings down to her be-socked feet and floral pants. She's quick to quip that they're pair of Ashley Williams trousers that she tells me are always mistaken for pyjama pants: “Every time I go to the airport they’re like, ‘Oh, you’re ready for bed.’ I’m like, ‘Girl, this is fashion!’”

She credits her eclecticism of taste to her love of op shops, to her Mother’s eccentric earrings, and to vintage hunting in every touring city. (Her favourite vintage finds so far include Victorian blouses and a white leather blazer discovered in Amsterdam.) Erykah Badu is her style north star. And if she could be any cartoon character, she poses: "Probably a Bratz doll?" Galavanting stages in her custom fluffy Benee boots (which she's now peddling as merch at shows), it's not a hard comparison to draw.

Even her jewellery becomes part of her maximalist style. As part of her recent collaboration with Danish jewellery brand Pandora, Bennett designed her own suite of personalised charms. Like artefacts from her inner five-year-old philosopher, the collection features snails, angels, an ungainly horse, the universal school-desk “S,” and a pendant engraved with the tongue-in-cheek slogan: I am fine. "The whole process [of creating the collection] was really cool," she tells me. "And it's awesome to see them in the flesh and wear them on my charm bracelets."

"When it came to the collab, and Pandora were asking for a bit of writing or a doodle, I was freaking out. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I draw so badly’", she explains. "But I think that was encouraged. A lot of the artwork that I like has this kind of childlike quality to it – it's abstract. So, a little doodle of an ugly horse is actually really cute and... kind of cool. I also wanted to put animals on there, so I put a snail. I just resonate with them."

Bennett affirms to me that she'll "definitely" be donning some of her own charm collection on stage, including her current favourite, the 'S' charm. "It's such a throwback to childhood, though, I feel like it kind of makes sense. It looks really cool on a chain, that charm." I also probe about the origins of the phrase ‘I am fine’, to which she responds: "Honestly, I just thought it was kind of funny."

"Sometimes the DIY vibe can still get you a cooler video than those with multi-million-dollar budgets. It’s really just about having a good idea,"

As for the rest of the year, 2026 is shaping up to be another big one. Touring has already begun – Bennett is halfway through a run of headlining shows across Australian and New Zealand, alongside her slot on the 2026 Laneway Festival lineup this February (she's most excited to see Geese and Chappell Roan perform). She's got a North American tour on the cards for later this year (inclusive of a new stage design she can’t yet reveal). And some potential new designs for her Benee Boots en route ("I'm really excited for the new boots").

On the topic of Laneway, she's tells me she's intimidated and exhilarated in equal measure – panicking while speculating that Cameron Winter's uber-cool Brooklyn rock band Geese will be watching her shows from the wings. "They're playing after me at every show!" she screams into her Zoom camera. "They're going to be watching from the wings. I'm going to piss myself on stage."

But despite pedestalling some of the artists on the lineup, it's also a chance for a reunion with a few of her friends and collaborators. She recently had British artist PinkPantheress hop on her song Princess,and is coy when asked about an on-stage reunion. "Maybe… wherever the wind takes us." Bennett tells me she's also pals with Tucker Pilsbury (aka Role Model), whom she collaborated with on a track called notice me almost six years ago, and whose star-studded Look at That Woman music video she appeared in back in 2024.

"He's great," she says when I ask about their friendship. "I'm going to be a little bit offended if I'm not Sally at one of the shows." (Spoiler: A mere two week's after our conversation, Benee indeed appeared on stage in Auckland as Role Model's 'Sally'.) "I often see him in L.A. We had the same managers and we were always kind of like, internet friends. Him and his band went for lunch at my Mum's house when they were in New Zealand on tour last year."

And aside from Laneway, there's plenty more in the pipes for 2026. “I’ve been working on new music,” she says with a grin. “I feel like I haven’t made my best music yet.” When I tell her that’s the healthiest possible artistic position, she laughs and agrees: "Exactly!". That openness – the refusal to arrive – feels exactly like the organising principle of Ur an Angel I'm Just Particles: it does not attempt to resolve itself. It leaves things open-ended; questions unanswered; re-arranging that sense of unknowing into a melody and handing it back like a mirror. Bennett has built a pop record that heads directly into the void and asks us to dance there. She doesn’t know what’s going on. And that, increasingly, feels like the point.

You can explore the full Styled by Benee collection – including exclusive sets with handwritten engravings by Benee – now on the Pandora website.

PHOTOGRAPHY Daphne Nguyen @ B&A

FASHION Thomas Townsend

TALENT Benee

HAIR Kyye @ After Winter Agency

MAKEUP Sean Brady @ AP—REPS

PHOTOGRAPHER’S ASSISTANT Diego Jose

STYLIST’S ASSISTANT Koby Dulac-Daley

DIGITAL OPERATOR David Deas

Feature image (left): MONIQUE FARRUGIA top; NIAMH GALEA jacket (worn underneath); PANDORA bracelets and ring. Feature image (right): PANDORA rings.