London duo Olivia Hardy and William Gao have been making music as Wasia Project since 2019, to critical acclaim. They’ve also amassed a loyal following and 200 million streams.
It’s perhaps a surprise, then, that they have yet to release their first album.
Nocturne – to be released on 18th September – is a collection of songs that sit in a lovely contradictory niche, creating a sense of life in transition, moving from comfort to challenge within the same piece of music.
The pair have spoken about this record as, in some ways, representing the liminality of life as a young adult. Their musical background and complex arrangements give them the tools to express that nuance by switching and blending genres.
What emerges is a record of great depth and quality, with highly technical musicianship alongside innovative production.
2515 opens the album squarely in this mode. It’s cool and dark, the bass pulsating menacingly. The coolness of the vocal is juxtaposed against the anger of the lyrics, exploring the power dynamics in relationships.
Vogue – one of the lead singles from the album – shifts gears, delivering a weekend-late-night disco feel. The underlying groove and Hardy’s falsetto call to mind Donna Summer’s classic I Feel Love. Similarly, Bleeding Gold, with its shimmering synths, taps into that nostalgic sound while simultaneously telling a story of returning to your roots and the contradictory comfort and restlessness, the push and pull, that can create:
“Now that I’m back in the house I lived in
Finally something’s going right
But then like a shot to the heart
I’m reaching out for a sign of a difficult feeling”
Whale Call gives us a different feeling altogether. Influences of Billie Eilish take us on a different journey. Longing, plaintive calls for life, a love just painfully out of reach, are conjured through Hardy’s delicate vocal – both pained and yet still somewhat hopeful.
They say it’s the hope that kills you, and there is a lot of that experienced on this record. The final two songs – Nightingale and Wildfire – tell of unresolved, nighttime longing.
“And to think I’ve been down this road before
Sitting in the dark, waiting for fireworks” Hardy laments in Nightingale, while in Wildfire:
“In the middle of the night I wait for you,
Like a wildfire that burns ’til it’s out.”
Gao takes the lead vocal on Even If I Tried, and it’s another example of the juxtaposed arrangement. Halfway through, it drops into an irregular groove sitting behind a haunting string arrangement. The chest-rattling bass alongside these elements taps right into the turmoil that the album creates.
Two songs stand out as epitomising the overarching themes of the record.
Voices in My Head is a story of loss and the struggle to come to terms with it. The ‘voices’ are the conversations you have with yourself as you cope with the feelings. Those voices grow into a cacophony, as the guitars and drums crescendo like the volume of your subconscious.
Haunting and cinematic, Sunken Quay is fraught, yet powerful.
“I could go forever
Living in between
I could cross an ocean in my sleep
Float a sunken quay!”
Hardy’s vocal deals with learning to inhabit the in-between. It’s a necessity as things change and shift. The interim phases of life – leaving home, navigating relationships, whatever it may be – the inherent liminality is also a reality.
In these songs, Wasia Project is finding ways to cope with these destabilising feelings. Those of us living in that same world will find themselves seen within the expansive landscape of this record. Just as Bleeding Gold suggested, there is comfort in the familiar, but the album gives us the courage to keep moving forward through the moments of discomfort and challenge.
Nocturne is out on Friday, and Wasia Project are on tour in the UK and Europe through November.
