Pushing past her fears and putting her heart on the line, Wisp is witnessing her childhood fantasies come to fruition in real-time. Natalie Lu grew up in San Francisco, studying computer science, yearning to find a space and community to share her interest in music. Upon the viral success of ‘Your Face’, realization struck that she found the shoegaze-loving audience she had been searching for, and Wisp came to be. Her debut album, If Not Winter, is Lu bringing us into a fantasy world inspired by the dreams, diary entries, and inner machinations of her childhood self. Following the release of the album and successful appearances at Coachella and Bonnaroo, the momentum around Wisp has only continued to grow.
A rainy afternoon on her day-off in Toronto sets the scene for a conversation between myself and the 20-year-old nu-metal, shoegaze artist on Google Meet. Lu finds herself in the city finishing off a series of opening sets for System Of A Down’s co-headliner stadium shows, seeing the likes of Korn, Avenged Sevenfold, and now one of her greatest inspirations, Deftones. “My childhood dreams inspire my world for Wisp,” explains Lu, recalling how she would close her eyes on car rides and imagine herself performing on a big stage, playing alongside her favorite bands as the crowd erupted in cheers and applause. “I would make mood boards for my year, every day, and one of my big goals was to open for Deftones,” she recounts sitting in wonder, witnessing her visions coming to life, reminding her that anything is possible.
If Not Winter takes listeners into an imaginary world, where Wisp is on a quest navigating emotions such as limerence, love, and infatuation. In creating the album, Lu challenged herself to embrace vulnerability without limitation, a process that proved vital to her artistic growth and her evolution into her most authentic self. “I had some form of fear that the people I was writing about would know these songs were about them, fear that I was showing too much of myself to my listeners,” she reminisces before she decided to write without fear.
“If I create this boundary or wall when I’m writing lyrics, it won’t be as raw or emotional as it could be if I just let the words flow out of myself. Whenever I wrote lyrics for this album, I really didn’t hold back. I was trying to describe my feelings with a lot of depth and personality.”
Her emotionally-charged release has been well received by listeners who’ve found comfort and relatability within it. In turn, Lu finds inner solace and success when she reads fans commenting on how they apply her songs to their own life situation, which she credits as always being her end goal. In navigating the vulnerability that comes with love in young adulthood, Wisp has found a sonic dialogue with her listeners, a way to encourage fans to re-connect with difficult emotions in a way that’s compassionate and healing, no matter what stage of life they may be in. To the 20 year-old wunderkind, writing about love doesn’t feel redundant,but rather powerful and inspiring.
“There are so many ways to write about love. We all see love differently and we all reciprocate or take it in our own ways. Whether or not you write a song that’s very simple or intricate, if it’s about love, people will attach their own meanings to it based on their own personal experiences.”
In her reflections on love and fear, Lu reveals how rooting herself in her own sense of being, rather than yielding to fear, shapes her path of growth. “The reason why I’m able to move forward is because I can push fear aside and take little baby steps towards growing into a better person or a better artist,” Lu shares, speaking on Guide Light, a track where she confronts her own wavering self-belief. The song reflects her ongoing transition through growth and success, a process in which she emphasizes accountability and humility as safeguards against losing herself. “I’ll make decisions that might harm me or my career and I always try to sit down with my thoughts or actions to really reflect on them,” she continues, noting that journaling has become a daily practice to keep her present and grounded.
Releasing a project that bares your innermost self—and knowing how many people will witness that side of you—can feel jarring. Yet Wisp chooses to view her audience as friends, people with whom she hopes to cultivate genuine connection. “If I’m making a connection with them through music, they’re already close to me. Even though I might not know too much about them, they know parts of me that I don’t usually talk about to even my friends or my family. That enough already makes it such a special connection in itself.”
The visual element was central to shaping Wisp’s world. Through enchanting, medieval-inspired imagery, she fuses the dreams of her inner child with the emotions of her present self, creating an atmosphere that blurs the line between realism and fantasy. “When I’m creating a visual world a lot of it is fantasy but I’m never playing a character. I’m really just being myself but in a crazy, surreal world,” she expands further, highlighting how her fantasy world reflects her living her dreams in the real world. “I’m not morphing or changing anything about myself to live these dreams, it showcases that I’m happy with who I am and living out what I have always sought after.”
A month on from its release, Lu describes a sense of relief in having her memories and thoughts eternalized in If Not Winter. What once felt heavy now becomes lighter through sharing, a way of turning private burdens into points of connection. Looking forward, she hopes to draw from new life experiences to push her growth and writing further, with the long-term goal of crafting an album she can stand behind without hesitation. “That’s definitely a big thing to ask for, and I’ve seen this in a lot of other artists as well, they always think that they could do something better. But as long as my music is reaching people in the right way, that’s all that matters to me. I’ll continue to work towards that goal and reach more people in the future.”
Izzy Petraglia is a publicist, writer and photographer based in Toronto. Within her work, she loves to tie in her passion for music, fashion, and pop culture. Follow her on Instagram