Feature: Wishlist - Big Sign

An experimental songwriting approach of two laptops with infinite sounds at their fingertips, Wishlist reveal their debut EP Big Sign. 

Starting out playing guitar music, the friendship between Stella Farnan and Soren Maryasin blossomed as they began falling in love with pop. Creating in real time, and following whatever instinct felt most exciting in the moment.

Wishlist explains,

“We kept making demos, loops, writing words, talking about our favourite music, talked about making art. We would write little philosophies about why we wanted to be making art. About how it made us feel like kids. It made us feel free. We reminisced about driving down the freeway blasting ‘Immaterial’ by SOPHIE on the way home from recording sessions when we were 19 - we wanted to find a way to capture that feeling.”

Wishlist have created a space where pop can hold both emotion and abstraction without sacrificing each other. Detailed and sample-driven, their sound always unfolds in unexpected directions, whether it’s bringing polish to the voice memo beginnings of ‘Ceilings’, mapping a constellation of sparkly synths on ‘Strike’, or harnessing eclectic digitalism with ‘I’m Sorry’.

Focus track ‘Counting On You’ pushes their sound into a more overt pop territory – “it's a bit sweeter and more major than the rest of the record”   – incorporating layered re-sampling and contrasting textures to soundtrack the undercurrent of desperation within the lyrics.

‘If I Met You’ hangs on the feeling of closure: reaching an ending, and turning back to view your experiences through a more objective lens. On creating the song, the band says,

 “The idea kind of presented itself, and it felt more like reading a story than writing one. We both just added layers quietly, sometimes separately, little by little, and reacted to what the other had made.”

Wishlist’s Debut EP Big Sign is available to stream independently now via AWAL.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN | CLICK HERE TO WATCH VIDEO -  I'M COUNTING ON YOU