While shoegaze has emerged as a newly rejuvenated cultural force over the last year and a half, Wisp has become one of the genre’s newest stars, and today Wisp and Tanukichan have joined forces for a single called “It Gets Easier,” the second single from Tanukichan’s new EP Circles (out September 20th, 2024 via Carpark Records).
Produced with new Tanukichan-collaborator Franco Reid, the track neatly marries the styles and voices of these two leading figures in their genre, bringing Wisp’s dreamy heaviness to bear on Tanukichan’s more electronic-leaning and break beat-oriented composition. Emerging from a reverbed haze, the track gradually forms in a swirl of distortion of feedback, building to a chorus where the pairs’ voices blend beautifully in the mist.
On the track, Van Loon says, “Franco wrote the riff in 2020 and loved the idea but didn’t know what to do with it, it was always kicking around and when he sent it to me things clicked and the song came about very quickly. When he wrote the initial riff he wanted it to feel a little sci-fi, rock, but also ethereal.“
Tanukichan, the musical project of Oakland, CA’s Hannah van Loon, has been a prominent figure in modern shoegaze music since 2016, when she first collaborated with Chaz Bear of Toro y Moi. Together, they released an EP and two full-length albums under Bear’s Company Records, culminating in 2023’s GIZMO, which was released in 2023 and was her most critically acclaimed release to date.
Are you vibing with Tanukichan’s latest single, “It Gets Easier”?