CoSign: Wisp Is the Next Leader of the Shoegaze Revival
The post CoSign: Wisp Is the Next Leader of the Shoegaze Revival appeared first on Consequence.
Once a month, Consequence proudly highlights an artist who’s poised for the big time with our CoSign accolade. For March 2024, that title goes to 19-year-old nu-gazer Wisp and her debut EP, Pandora.
Wisp is like any other music-obsessed 19-year-old: she loves talking tunes with friends, she posts Topsters on her Instagram to show off her ever-developing taste, and she almost instantly became a leading figure of the shoegaze revival with her first-ever release, “Your face.” On second thought, that last one might just be a her thing…
“It’s been really exciting,” the artist tells Consequence of her quick and continuing rise. “I wasn’t expecting it at all because I kind of just posted it online for fun. I thought it was a cool song, but I didn’t expect much out of it.”
And yet, much is exactly what she got. The irresistible, distortion-soaked track currently sits at over 45 million streams on Spotify, and it’s not hard to understand why. Perfectly toying with tension and release, the song swings between fuzzy and FUZZY in a way that scratches a deep, pedal-board-gazing itch. Supplemented with her saturated, ethereal vocals, the song so perfectly taps into buzzy shoegaze aesthetics that one might suspect it to be the product of a writing team of contemporary indie rock tastemakers. In reality, it’s simply the work of a teenage girl with a knack for satisfying song structures and heavy-as-hell tones, a teenage girl whose previous musical experiences didn’t extend beyond her school’s band and noodling away in her bedroom.
“I grew up listening to a lot of dream pop, and I was also put onto older rock when I was like 12. It was that kind of music that started getting me into shoegaze,” she recalls. “I just discovered it for what it was, not knowing it was called shoegaze, but I really liked the sound of it, and how they have really hard drops in their music — that was my favorite part about it. I would just make super long playlists of dream pop and shoegaze, and then I found out what the genre ‘actually meant’ and got more into it.”
Becoming obsessed with Deftones and Whirr (her Instagram handle is @whirrwhoreforlyfe), Wisp got swept up in the swirling sonic universe such bands embody, discovering new music and a thriving community.
“The shoegaze community is definitely interesting, but they’re really cool and I love it,” she says. “I think it’s really cool to see a new generation of shoegaze, and kind of the revival of it in a way. But they’re [also] making it their own sound, and it’s something that’s totally different from what shoegaze used to be.”
With “Your face,” Wisp established herself as a contributing force to that “new generation” of shoegaze — or ‘nu gaze,’ as the kids call it — in just three minutes and 49 seconds. Subsequent and equally quality singles like “Tangled dreams” and “Once then we’ll be free” soon followed, only further cementing her status as the shoegaze prodigy to watch within online circles and indie-conscious media outlets (including us, as we clocked Wisp as one of the 15 artists to watch in 2024).
Now comes the daunting part — the first non-single release. Wisp’s debut EP, Pandora, drops April 5th and looks to tighten the bow on her seemingly inevitable artistic career. Luckily, it’s every bit as compelling as what came before it, offering similarly exciting moments of distorted guitar bliss while expanding on her breadth of influences.
The collection compiles previous singles “Your face” and “See you soon,” both bangers in their own right, but it’s the new cuts where Pandora really shines — a promising sign for the young artist. The title track is as close to “Be Quite and Drive (Far Away)” as Wisp has gotten yet, and “Luna” leans into her less-explored dream pop interests, broadening her harder and heavier tendencies with a certain Cocteau Twins grace. Ultimately, it’s a sampler of Wisp’s interests funneled through her incredible songwriting instincts, a “collection of my favorite songs that I’ve worked on so far,” as she puts it.
Pandora arrives as only the first of several big swings on the horizon for Wisp, as the artist continues to ride the wave of indie stardom that unexpectedly hit her shores. December saw her debut live performance, and yet she already has a beefy touring agenda for 2024, including a run of dates with Panchiko and Weatherday (get tickets here).
Hitting the road for the first time is a new, exciting, slightly anxiety-inducing prospect, as is the performance in general (as she points out in this pretty damn earnest TikTok). At the same time, it’s only feeding her ambitions. Both in the studio and on tour, it’s clear talking with her that Wisp is only just getting started.
“I think my biggest goal is definitely to explore my music style a lot more and try to be more diverse in the music I make,” she shares confidently. “And shows-wise, Basement would be a really cool band to open for — Pavement too! And, honestly, supporting for Deftones would be super sick as well.”
But even if she never ends up connecting with Chino Moreno and the gang, Wisp has already proven herself as more than just a quick, TikTok-bolstered flash in the pan. With each new release, she makes as such even more blindingly clear. Fueled by a genuine love for hazy music and an instinctual understanding of what makes the style work, Wisp is the unassuming shoegaze savior the genre deserves.
CoSign: Wisp Is the Next Leader of the Shoegaze Revival
Jonah Krueger
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