Zohaib Wishy is releasing their new EP, Planet Popstar (now on Winspear). After exploding onto the scene with their acclaimed 2023 EP Paradise, Wishy released their debut LP Triple Seven on Winspear in the summer of 2024, one of their most critically beloved debuts. The album has earned praise from outlets like Pitchfork (“a standout voice in a new generation of shoegaze“), Stereogum (“one of the best indie rock debuts in recent memory“), the NME (“one of the most exciting new rock bands operating anywhere right now“), Paste (“one of the most irresistible, unshakeable albums of the year“) Uproxx (“one of the best new bands in indie rock writ large“), and landing on Best of 2024 lists from publications like The New York Times, GQ and Alt Press.
The band’s run of success has shown no signs of slowing in 2025, with a Colbert performance at the end of February, the release of their new EP, an upcoming run of tour dates with Momma, and appearances at Kilby Block Party and the just announced Riot Fest.
LISTEN TO WISHY’S PLANET POPSTAR EP
Wishy’s latest offering is a sun-soaked, hazy reflection on the band’s central themes–love, life, self-discovery, and having fun. It’s a compilation of tracks presented as a unit, showing another side of the band’s kaleidoscopic sound that deftly plays with nostalgia and genre. “We really wanted to lean into the high-production style and had a lot of fun in the studio using these songs as an opportunity to explore a more polished, adult-contemporary feel,” says singer/guitarist Kevin Krauter.
On Planet Popstar’s title track, Krauter takes the mic amidst a wash of heavy guitar tones and production plucked from the early aughts, sweetened by Pitchkites’ dreamy backup harmonies. Named for the glowing, five-pointed star that the iconic bubblegum-pink Nintendo character Kirby hails from, Planet Popstar is a bite-sized antidote to the anxiety and precarity of life in the 2020s.
At the top of the EP, the hypnotizing indie-pop swooner “Fly” only solidifies that notion. “I found a way / to be grateful every day / even when I sit and wait / knowing I gotta fly,” sings Pitchites over a wash of doubled vocals and hazy guitars on this sister track to the Pitchkites-led titular track on Triple Seven, also co-written with collaborator Steve Marino. The band delivers another dose of catchy alt-pop with “Over and Over,” a track that unwinds into a propulsive chorus rife with addictive melodies, intricate guitar work, and Krauter’s idiosyncratic vocals. The rest of the EP sprawls out across genre and theme, collaging the original GarageBand demos made for the songs with shinier contributions made in producer Ben Lumsdaine’s Los Angeles studio.
From the intimate beginnings of two old friends trading bedroom demos, Wishy’s early discography has bloomed into a bold, ambitious introduction with the release of Paradise and Triple Seven. With the addition of Planet Popstar, Wishy completes a loose web of vignettes and snapshots capturing them in a whirlwind couple of years — exiting the pandemic, embarking on an embryonic project, making sense of their musical pasts while forging a musical future alongside one another, each of them on a journey of self-acceptance and self-understanding.
ORDER PARADISE ON PLANET POPSTAR VINYL HERE
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