Melbourne indie pop duo Wishlist’s debut single “Even When I’m Leaving” is a hypnotically dreamy introduction that finds meaning not in staying still, but in learning how to hold love with care as everything around it begins to change.

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Stream: “Even When I’m Leaving” – Wishlist

On their best first days, new bands don’t chase a sound – they build a shared language, one instinctive layer at a time, until something clicks and suddenly it feels a little bit magical.

That spark is the beating heart of Wishlist, the Naarm/Melbourne duo of longtime friends and collaborators Stella Farnan and Soren Maryasin, whose debut single “Even When I’m Leaving” blooms from process, presence, and trust. “We are two best friends who have been making music together for years, but previously never as a duo,” they tell Atwood Magazine. “We love great songwriting, and the magic of hearing a new sound come out of the speakers. We also both love pop music.”

Both artists bring years of experience as touring musicians, session players, and producers – performing on stages from the Sydney Opera House to the Forum, touring with Angie McMahon, Mallrat, and Gretta Ray, and contributing to Grammy-nominated and ARIA-winning projects – but Wishlist feels like their most personal, focused work yet: Experimental pop built not around hierarchy, but reciprocity.

Watch me in stop motion
Shapes in the high tide
Back to the wall

Don’t you know that I
I want you honest
So I hold your promise tight

Don’t forget
That you’re in
every step I take

This ethos began with a deliberate reset. “On the first of January, 2024, we tried an experiment,” they explain, reflecting on their frustrations with the conventional artist/producer dynamic – “where one person is designated to the computer chair and the other to the couch. It’s often super gendered, creatively stifling, and ultimately antithetical to the kind of music we’re interested in making together.” So they built a dual production station: Two mirrored setups facing each other, each with a laptop, guitar, MIDI keyboard, microphone, and interface, all fed into a third “digital tape machine” laptop that let them record ideas in real time and layer each other’s sounds on top. “It blew things wide open for us,” they say. “We’ve been writing that way ever since.”

Their shared process is why Wishlist’s music feels less like a product and more like a place you can step into. “Our writing has really been driven by process and headspace, rather than any specific vision of what we want to make or sound like,” they tell me. “We’re honestly just trying to have fun, and avoid limiting our musical palette by strict references or aesthetic guidelines. Everything is meant to be an experiment.” They’ve gravitated toward sampling for exactly that reason – a way to veer away from the obvious and find a more surprising emotional contour. “It’s much more of a throw-paint-at-the-wall approach,” they add, “where we eventually take a step back to see what we made.”

Throw your arms around
All the love that you have found
Tied up in blanket bows
Block it out to pull you close

Independently released August 20^th, “Even When I’m Leaving” is the first time that open-ended, co-piloted world fully crystallized. “‘Even When I’m Leaving’ was the first song where both of us looked each other in the eye and felt like it was something we’d truly made together,” they share. “All of the parts that we made came together very organically and the sounds that we each made were varied. We each made different drum parts, vocal parts and synth parts, and it felt a bit magical.” The song “stems from a feeling of transition and change,” they add – one of the earliest pieces they made together as Wishlist, created before there was an aesthetic blueprint to follow. “We had no references or plan for how we wanted to sound,” they explain. “The inspiration came more from an experimental production set up, and musical language that we had developed over years as friends and collaborators.”

You can hear that origin story in the track’s hypnotic tenderness – the way it feels simultaneously gentle and buoyant, lilting and lush, like it’s floating forward even as it’s holding on. The duo’s behind-the-scenes details only deepen that sense of living, breathing discovery: “We made this one out in the trees in a room with big windows that kind of makes it feel like you’re outside,” they recall. “We plugged into Soren’s old ns10s, which can sound a bit wooden and crappy.” With their laptops set up across a trestle table, they started pulling “random audio files” into Logic’s quick sampler, letting sound lead story. “We just sat there pressing buttons and reacting to what we heard – if we liked it, if it made our eyes widen, then we recorded it.” Stella resampled and pitched down drums; Soren played piano; they “chopped up” their voices; acoustic guitars arrived in the afternoon; and “as the sun set,” they leaned into darker, moodier details. “We just reacted to what felt good,” they say, returning later to shape the song and “collaboratively write lyrics until the story felt clear.”

In the dying light
We both laugh until we cry
Quarter slipping through the cracks

Deep shout
Something I can’t leave without
So I can keep it til
the very last second we get
I should throw my arms around you

At its core, the song is about devotion that doesn’t deny transformation – closeness that can stretch without breaking.

“‘Even When I’m Leaving’ is about the tension between devotion and the urge to change,” they explain. “There’s a push and pull in our attachments to others, and this song lives in that state of transformation, trust and surrender.” It’s not easy, they admit, “to hold things together through the changing passage of time,” but the song offers a kind of soft, steady faith: “We offer each other hope, possibility and growth.”

That’s what makes Wishlist’s debut feel so quietly striking – not just the hypnotic, dreamy indie pop shimmer of it all, but the philosophy underneath: Two artists refusing creative hierarchy, choosing play and experimentation, and letting the music be a record of real collaboration. “It has felt like a huge joy to put out something we both really, really love,” they share. “We’ve both wanted to make pop music that has all of the sonic features and emotions that we love in all the music we listen to for a while now, so it feels great to make that real and share a little piece of it with everyone.” And in the most Wishlist move possible, they don’t overdetermine how it should land. “We generally try to avoid thinking about how our music will be heard while we’re making it,” they add. “We hope that, in a roundabout way, the escapism we get from that creative process is what comes across in the music.”

As dreamy as it is deliberate, “Even When I’m Leaving” feels less like a debut statement than an arrival – a first glimpse of a wonderful world built slowly, instinctively, and together.

Wishlist recently sat down with Atwood Magazine to talk about the shared language, trust, and experimentation behind “Even When I’m Leaving” – and what it’s meant to build something together without a power structure. Read our conversation below, and get lost in the lush folds of “Even When I’m Leaving” wherever you stream music!

Throw your arms around
The fact that every time I hit the ground
You relieve my bleeding
(You relieve my bleeding)

Don’t forget
That you’re in every
single step I take
Even when I’m leaving
(Even when I’m leaving)

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:: stream/purchase Even When I’m Leaving here ::

:: connect with Wishlist here ::

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Stream: “Even When I’m Leaving” – Wishlist

A CONVERSATION WITH WISHLIST

Wishlist: We are two best friends who have been making music together for years, but previously never as a duo. We love great songwriting, and the magic of hearing a new sound come out of the speakers. We also both love pop music.

On the first of January 2024, we tried an experiment. We often talk about our frustrations with the conventional artist/producer dynamic, where one person is designated to the computer chair and the other to the couch. It’s often super gendered, creatively stifling, and ultimately antithetical to the kind of music we’re interested in making together. We wanted to allow the songwriting process to be guided by the production – and we both wanted to be producing. So, we decided to set up a dual production station. We sat facing each other, with a laptop, guitar, midi keyboard, microphone and small interface each. We then fed each setup into an old, third laptop which acted as a sort of digital tape machine. It allowed one of us to create a sound on our computer, record it into the ‘tape machine’ and then let the other person layer on top of it with a sound from their computer. It blew things wide open for us, as we could both be contributing to the production at the same time, and it also led to more sonic experimentation by layering each other’s ideas onto one another. We’ve been writing that way ever since.

Wishlist: Our writing has really been driven by process and headspace, rather than any specific vision of what we want to make or sound like. We’re honestly just trying to have fun, and avoid limiting our musical palette by strict references or aesthetic guidelines. Everything is meant to be an experiment.

That’s part of the reason we’ve fallen into playing with sampling a lot. It’s such a simple shortcut to move away from the most obvious sonic choice. It’s much more of a throw-paint-at-the-wall approach, where we eventually take a step back to see what we made.

Wishlist: We both grew up listening to guitar music – for Soren a lot of rock music and for Stella a lot of singer/songwriters. As time progressed and listening habits expanded we both fell in love with pop music. Over the last few years, we’ve been most inspired by artists like Caroline Polachek, Bjork, Sorry, Imogen Heap, Charli XCX, and Aldous Harding.

Wishlist: We made this one out in the trees in a room with big windows that kind of makes it feel like you’re outside. We plugged into Soren’s old ns10s, which can sound a bit wooden and crappy. We both had our laptops set up on either side of the trestle table and we got creating. A lot of the foundational elements of the production came from dragging random audio files from our computers into Logic’s ‘quick sampler’. We just sat there pressing buttons and reacting to what we heard – if we liked it, if it made our eyes widen, then we recorded it.

Stella resampled and pitched down some drums, Soren played some piano, and we chopped up our voices. In the afternoon we recorded acoustic guitars and came up with the chorus, and as the sun set, we started adding some of the darker, more moody elements of the production. We just reacted to what felt good. We returned to the song a while later to carve out the details of its shape, and collaboratively write lyrics until the story felt clear.

Wishlist: “Even When I’m Leaving” is about the tension between devotion and the urge to change. There’s a push and pull in our attachments to others, and this song lives in that state of transformation, trust and surrender. It’s not easy to hold things together through the changing passage of time, but we offer each other hope, possibility and growth.

Wishlist: It has felt like a huge joy to put out something we both really, really love. We’ve both wanted to make pop music that has all of the sonic features and emotions that we love in all the music we listen to for a while now, so it feels great to make that real and share a little piece of it with everyone. We generally try to avoid thinking about how our music will be heard while we’re making it. We hope that, in a roundabout way, the escapism we get from that creative process is what comes across in the music.

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:: stream/purchase Even When I’m Leaving here ::

:: connect with Wishlist here ::

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Stream: “Even When I’m Leaving” – Wishlist

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 © Lauren Kimber

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