Melbourne indie pop duo Wishlist introduces themselves with their debut single “Even When I’m Leaving,” a mesmerizing and dreamlike track that emphasizes the importance of nurturing love amid changing circumstances.
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Stream: “Even When I’m Leaving” – Wishlist
On their best initial days, new bands do not pursue a specific sound; instead, they develop a shared language, gradually layering it until something enchanting emerges. This spark is at the core of Wishlist, the Naarm/Melbourne duo consisting of longtime friends and collaborators Stella Farnan and Soren Maryasin. Their debut single, “Even When I’m Leaving,” is a product of process, presence, and trust. “We are two best friends who have been making music together for years, but never as a duo before,” they tell Atwood Magazine. “We appreciate great songwriting and the wonder of hearing a fresh sound come from the speakers. We also both have a passion for pop music.”
Both Stella and Soren bring extensive experience as touring musicians, session players, and producers—having performed at venues like the Sydney Opera House and the Forum, toured with artists such as Angie McMahon, Mallrat, and Gretta Ray, and contributed to Grammy-nominated and ARIA-winning projects. However, Wishlist feels like their most personal and focused work to date, presenting experimental pop built around mutual collaboration rather than hierarchy.
The song starts with a conscious reset. “On January 1, 2024, we tried an experiment,” they recall, highlighting their dissatisfaction with the traditional artist/producer relationship, where one is stuck at the computer while the other remains passive. “This setup often feels gendered, creatively limiting, and contrary to the music we want to make together.” Thus, they created a dual production station: two mirrored setups with laptops, guitars, MIDI keyboards, microphones, and interfaces, all connected to a third “digital tape machine” laptop for real-time recordings that allowed them to layer sounds. “This opened up so many possibilities for us,” they state. “We’ve written that way ever since.”
Wishlist © 2025
Their collaborative process is what gives Wishlist's music a sense of place rather than a commercial product. “Our writing is primarily driven by process and mindset, not a strict vision of what we want to create or sound like,” they explain. “We’re simply trying to enjoy ourselves and avoid confining our musical options to rigid references or aesthetic rules. Everything is an experiment.” They’ve naturally gravitated toward sampling for this very reason—a way to deviate from the obvious and discover unexpected emotional depths. “It’s a bit more of a throw-paint-at-the-wall method,” they describe, “where we later step back to evaluate what we have made.”
Independently released on August 20th, “Even When I’m Leaving” marks the moment when their co-piloted creative world took form. “This was the first song where we genuinely looked at each other and felt it was a true collaboration,” they share. “The parts we created came together organically, with diverse sounds from both of us. It felt a bit magical.” The song “originates from feelings of transition and change,” they add—one of the earliest pieces they made together under the Wishlist name, crafted before any specific aesthetic vision was established. “We had no references or plans for our sound; the inspiration flowed from an experimental setup and our musical language developed over years of friendship and collaboration.”
That inception is evident in the track’s entrancing tenderness—its gentle yet buoyant essence feels like it’s gently drifting forward while holding on. The duo's behind-the-scenes details enrich that feeling of living, evolving exploration: “We created this in a room surrounded by trees and large windows that make it feel open to the outdoors,” they remember. “We plugged into Soren’s old ns10s, which can be a bit rough-sounding.” With their laptops set up on a trestle table, they began importing “random audio files” into Logic’s quick sampler, allowing sounds to inspire their storytelling. “We just pressed buttons and responded to what we heard—if it caught our attention, we recorded it.” Stella resampled and lowered some drum sounds; Soren played piano; they altered their voices, recorded acoustic guitars in the afternoon, and as the daylight faded, they incorporated darker, moodier tones. “We just reacted to what felt right,” they say, later returning to refine the song’s structure and jointly write lyrics until the narrative was clear.
At its heart, the song explores the idea of commitment that acknowledges change—intimacy that can stretch without breaking. “’Even When I’m Leaving’ captures the struggle between devotion and the desire to evolve,” they elaborate. “It embodies the push and pull of our connections with others, existing in a space of transformation, trust, and surrender.” They acknowledge that “holding things together through
Melbourne indie pop duo Wishlist’s first single “Even When I’m Leaving” offers a mesmerizingly dreamy introduction, emphasizing that meaning lies not in remaining static, but in discovering how to cherish love as everything around it starts to shift.