Although Will Gao can be recognized to most by way of his portrayal of Tao Xu in Netflix’s coming-of-age smash Heartstopper, his musical endeavours as one half of Wasia Mission alongside sister Olivia Hardy have been for much longer within the making. Removed from a aspect hustle, Wasia – shaped in 2019, and named after a conflation of the pair’s combined western and Asian heritage – craft an achieved palette rooted in classical coaching however bringing in trendy, Laufey-esque jazz and crooning indie-pop. Current single Takes Me Again House is wealthy with strings and Hardy’s haunting vocals, whereas breakthrough observe Ur So Fairly (featured on the Heartstopper soundtrack) is an appropriately heart-tugging train in classical piano minimalism.
The impact is of a duo sensible past their still-minimal years; Gao is 21, Hardy 19. Filled with craving, they turned to music to flee the pressures of rising up in a always advancing social media technology.
“There’s at all times a bittersweet tinge of disappointment and nostalgia with change,” Hardy just lately informed DIY journal. On 29 August, second EP Isotope will arrive forward of a US tour. Filled with tempestuous instrumentation (Is This What Love Is?), tender balladry (the Gao-led To Get Higher) and concluding with the previous Hollywood sweep of instrumental Inform Me Lies, it’s the work of a pair of previous souls attempting to make sense of the fashionable world.
