Today, Naarm/Melbourne duo Wishlist independently shares their debut EP, Big Sign, alongside the announcement of headline shows in Sydney and Melbourne this August. Tickets are on sale now, LISTEN HERE + TICKETS HERE.

The formation of Wishlist, though unplanned, was somehow inevitable. Starting out playing guitar music, the friendship between Stella Farnan and Soren Maryasin blossomed as they began falling in love with pop. And after years playing sessions and touring for other people’s projects (including Mallrat, AngieMcMahon, Gretta Ray and more), they each felt it was time to dive into something of their own, and on a whim, booked two weeks of studio time with one goal: make music, with zero preconceptions.

This is how Big Sign began, through an experimental songwriting approach of two laptops with infinite sounds at their fingertips, 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.”

Since sharing their gripping debut ‘Even When I’m Leaving’, 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’.

Today’s 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.”

Breaking out with a packed out headline Naarm/Melbourne’s Northcote Social Club, stand-out sets at 2025’s BIGSOUND Festival, and support from triple j and Unearthed, rage, 4ZZZ, Atwood Magazine, Somersault Magazine and more, at the heart of Wishlist is their brazen experimentation and innovation, now culminating in an EP that marks their most fulfilling work yet. “The record ‘Big Sign’ feels a lot like a representation of who we are as friends, and what we believe in,” Stella shares. “But most of all I think it represents the freedom that we want to give each other in this project. We think of Wishlist as a vessel in which we can shape shift and make whatever the hell we want. There are a lot of places that we want to go. ‘Big Sign’ is our mission statement. It’s the thing that we’re both most proud of.”