‘If Not Winter' by Wisp Review: A ‘Nu-Gaze' on a Familiar Genre
In 2023, Natalie Lu of San Francisco, then 18 years old, encountered on YouTube a noisy and ethereal instrumental in the shoegaze vein created by a producer going by the name Grayskies. Inspired by what she heard, she wrote and recorded a vocal melody and lyrics that fit the chord structure, mixed the two tracks, called the song 'Your Face,' and uploaded it to TikTok and SoundCloud. Her song, which cost almost nothing to record, drew an audience, and before long it became a massive viral hit. She called her project Wisp, signed with Interscope, and issued an EP last year. Her debut album for the imprint, 'If Not Winter,' out Friday, is both a solid entry in the Gen Z-led update of the sound of shoegaze and an intriguing case study of how music circulates through culture.
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