Wisp:

My relationship with TikTok is a complex one. To preface, I think the app is incredible in so many ways and serves as a great tool for artists to promote themselves and their work. My personal experience with TikTok is ever-changing and it was definitely a challenge for me to find enjoyment in creativity and posting on the app as someone who gained a majority of their platform from said app. A lot of times, I felt obliged to post a specific amount, a certain way, and it sucked all the fun out of it. But sometimes we need to put our disdain aside and learn to adapt when it’s worth it. TikTok can do a lot for anyone who has passion and a voice that wants to speak. I’m grateful I live in an era of art where discovering talented art is more accessible, so why wouldn’t I throw myself in the mix? I learned to make the app enjoyable by showing more of my personality in videos and posting with less care. No more following trends if I don’t feel like it and treating the app like my own little blog.

W:

Aphex Twin, Beach House, Hans Zimmer, Have a Nice Life. Artists who are able to convey visceral, story-like songs with instrumentation alone inspire me so much and I’d love to just tell them how I feel, what world I want Wisp to live in, and then for it to be brought to life. I feel like I rely on my lyrics to tell a story a lot of times, but would love to let the music carry it forward more. Beach House and Have a Nice Life are a couple artists I like to listen to when I need inspiration for my music.

W: I think it’s a style that’ll naturally develop as I’m writing this next album. All I know for now is that I want to incorporate different instruments(strings, brass, wind), I want the lyrics to follow a storytelling flow, and I want to take inspiration from jazz drums, emo chords, and folk instrumentation.

W:

I’m working on an album but I am not sure when it is set to release yet! I’m definitely going to take precious time with this next one and hone in on my songwriting skills to make it something I’ll be really proud of- which would mean it needs to be a bigger step from my debut album through stepping out of my comfort zone and exploring my potential to greater heights. But that’s not to say there won’t be any new music for the rest of 2026! I’d love to put out a lot more new things this year, especially for my upcoming shows. I’ve also been working on new live visuals and music video concepts. World-building and having strong imagery is really important and something I’ve been having so much fun brainstorming.

W:

I like to think I enjoyed it and had somewhat of a passion for computer science but I don’t think my heart was ever really in it. I chose it because I grew up wanting to be in the STEM field, thought it would make money, and I was really into video games at the time. I was also super salty in college and hated on art majors out of envy. It was really naive of me but I thought by choosing something that seemed like it guaranteed financial success would be the most fulfilling option and one I wouldn’t regret. It wasn’t untilI started making my own music, for real this time and not just writing songs in my bedroom forever, that I felt assured in myself and my future.

W:

It wasn’t until a while after “Your face” blew up online and the singles that followed after. I had met my manager about four months after the ball started rolling, then signed to my label, started filming my first ever music video and visualizer, then played my first show – all within the same year. Even after all of this I was still skeptical of the longevity music would provide me as a career. I was a barista during this time and was still enrolled in my classes, just transferring to all online so I could travel to LA to do studio sessions. I also struggled with self-confidence and found myself doubting my abilities as a song writer and performer. All of this made it hard for me to believe I could take the jump even though I had wings the whole time. It wasn’t until I had played my first show and seen the impact of my music right in front of my eyes that I realized how special and rare creating community like that was. I was growing to be more comfortable in my identity as Wisp and knew this wouldn’t be an opportunity I should ever pass up. It’s dropped out of uni my second semester of my sophomore year and it was the best decision I could have made for myself. I moved to LA to focus on music and went on tour for the first time! It was the most pivotal year of my entire life and now I get to live out the rest of my life just like this.

W:

It changes all the time! I think around the time I started Wisp I was listening to a lot of music that sounds similar to mine now, which is the reason why Wisp sounds the way it does. But the more people I meet and the more festivals and concerts I go to, I find inspiration in new artists that become new inspirations to my music. Most of the stuff I like and let influence Wisp though are bands I grew up listening to. Recently I’ve been listening to Movements, Alice Phoebe Lou, Fiona Apple, Citizen, Forma Norte, and Venturing.

W:

To be honest moving to LA was such a drastic change for me. I moved away from my parents and started living alone which I had never done. I had no friends and no way of getting around. My social life was basically nonexsistent and so I fixated on writing music as much as I could, sometimes 7 days out of the week being spent at the studio. LA became a suffocating and uninspiring place to work in. I was put in the same windowless, stuffy studios- expected to write another hit (this pressure and expectation no one except myself had put on me). Getting away from LA, whether that meant going back home to San Francisco or even just writing in a different part of LA away from the noise was how I found motivation to write better music on the first album. But so much has changed since then. LA has been the biggest creative hub and community that has watered me to flourish as an artist. It is no longer draining but enriching. I have a new group of friends and a loving boyfriend, my bond with my team and my manager has strengthened, I have been focusing more on my mental health and allowing myself to take breaks without feeling guilty. It was never the city that suffocated me but myself. The sun is always out and I just had to open my eyes.

NOGA EREZ:

There wasn’t a single cinematic moment. It was more like a quiet accumulation. Suddenly, people I didn’t know were singing words I wrote alone in the room with Ori. From a practical standpoint, I began earning real money when my music was used in a major Apple ad campaign.

NE:

The first time someone told me a lyric helped them name a feeling they were kinda weirded out by. Music did that for me. Made me feel less awkward about myself and the things I feel.

NE: I don’t think there’s anything special about it. I’ve been meeting a lot of creatives recently. In some of these rooms, I felt like I was different just because of my perspective, and in some because of how I look for a different way to express something.

But in my head, the creative process is like an argument between different sides of the self. What comes out is a compromise (in the best way) found after debating. I kinda feel like it’s not uniquely my experience.

NE: I don’t. I probably should have. I used to think rituals are whack. Now I really understand that they are ways to unlock your brain so it’s more in sync with where you’re going. I want something like that in my life.

NE: Motherhood. It’s too raw, too close. I don’t want to aestheticize it before I understand it. Right now, the song I can write about it would be the stupidest, shallowest love song for the perfect creature that I’m staring at for hours every day. But we don’t need songs like that!

NE: Nowadays, it’s mainly in rooms where confidence and conviction are mistaken for aggression. I learned early on how to soften myself to let other people know they are safe around me.

It’s not performative. We all have to tweak ourselves to be more understood.

NE: That pretending protects you short-term, but it gets to you later on. So, it’s also about being surrounded by people who get the way I am.

NE: Good one. Because identity is shaky as fuck, and performance gives us the illusion of control.

NE: I’ve recently learned that I don’t quite understand Noga Erez the public persona as other people do. But I think most people might think I’m more serious than I actually am.

NE: Yes! Let some pop continue to be naive and some be woke and full of confrontation. We can’t afford to lose the basic, pure joy of music just being a fun thing.

NE: Just enough to keep everyone from the creator to the audience engaged, on their toes, interested, and open for change.

NE: It’s knowing what you want and going for it without apologizing, it’s being difficult but so comfortable in your own skin, it’s about being vulnerable and open.

NE: When I’m fully present.

NE: When it doesn’t try to be sexy. When it’s skillful but restrained. When it’s self-aware and funny.

NE: Some of it, yeah. But not in a gross way. Also, I make music with the man I make love with. It’s in there.

NE: The voice and sexuality are very connected. I can feel whether a song has that flavor when I record vocals. But then, it doesn’t necessarily manifest itself every time I perform it. I have a very “sexy” song called AYAYAY. Very rarely do I feel sexy while performing it, because of the expectation.

NE: Exposed, vulnerable and powerful at the same time. Sometimes it’s lit, sometimes it’s nerve-wracking. If I don’t burn myself out touring, it continues to be a world full of so much emotion. A metaphor of life. A capsule of my existence. When I get very psychological about it, it all feels like a big lab to try out how life would feel on speed.

NE: Well, I am a female artist, and I don’t use sex to sell my music. I think that is becoming somewhat rare. I see artists start like, “Hey I’m a human,” and then after a few years be like, “I sell sex, too.”

Sex is a very important part of life and also a tool that can be used in playful ways. It can make you feel empowered and vulnerable. But why do only us girls get naked?

It’s hard to imagine being brought up in a world that’s different from the one we have now, where sexuality is utilized mainly by women for men.

When it’s just so unequal, I can’t help but wonder, is it a power that we have and choose to use, or is it a disadvantage?

Back to the question, my sense of sensuality has remained quite the same throughout my 11 years of career. It’s only used when it is actually there, never fake. It’s never there to help me sell my music.

NE: Yes. Songs allow contradictions. Real life doesn’t.

All of my opinions, thoughts, vibes are in my song. None of them are there on social media.

NE: For sure. But I always found that the people I’m trying to be liked by, hence they don’t naturally like me, will never be a true audience for my type of shit, so it’s all good, and I just keep writing mad stuff that some people like.

NE: I think I listen. And then some days I’d be chasing something that someone told me, and some days I’d be on my “stronger” side and more like, “It’s good to hear that, but imma stay right here.”

The expectations of myself are when it gets complicated. And that’s one thing I can say about having my one-year-old, Tony. I don’t have the same privilege to overthink, so I rarely get so in my head. And it’s good because it keeps me moving, and I sweat out the bullshit as I go.

NE: Doubt on a day-to-day basis is a quality control system. Yes. But then the real doubt that comes in every now and then is more like, why am I doing this? Does it make a difference? Is it worth the effort? It’s sometimes so big that it creates real crisis. I want out of music a lot. I continue to question whether using my biggest love in life as my breadwinner is a smart move. But I just keep coming back. So here we are.

NE: It’s exactly what they are sometimes. But sometimes my lyrics are just a load of crap that sounds cool.

I do it all.

I recently started doing this exercise: whenever I overthink, I write about overthinking, and then I get bored, and I move the fuck on.

NE: I think I enjoy a very perfect amount of fame at the moment, where I mostly get the good stuff but not the bad stuff that comes with it. It also has a lot to do with how much I engage and most of it is still within my control.

NE: Being an artist is the most privileged life, and I am insanely lucky to be able to do it.

I am ‘forced’ by my own job to continue to keep in check with myself and things around me, analyze situations to the bone. Because I analyze and overanalyze for a living, I have, by this point, a perspective on things, and on the very act of analyzing itself. The zoom in and out motion itself is being looked at. Being made into sound and words. Being laughed at and ridiculed.

It helps to give the side of me that thinks it’s not all that serious a bigger space in my life.

I don’t think my thinking brain would have done very well in any other place. I get to be many versions of myself. I am free.