LOS ANGELES, CA- When Wisp stepped on stage at the Fonda on September 23, I already felt like I knew her—at least intimately, through her music. I first encountered her earlier this year via a Coachella livestream, and what struck me then still pulses in my memory: a heavy, dark wall of sound, enveloped by distortion, yet delivered through a fragile, almost whisper-like voice. It was a combination that felt both confrontational and vulnerable, and coming from someone who appeared so delicate, so small, it felt profound. In that moment, I felt the same rush you get when you discover someone who refuses the boxes you expect. And now, watching her command a room, I was confronted again by how necessary representation is—and how rare it still is, in alternative and heavier musical spaces, to see Asian (or Asian American) artists front and center.
Natalie R. Lu, better known as Wisp, is a young musician from San Francisco of Thai and Taiwanese descent. She only began releasing music in 2023, and her debut single “Your Face” went viral, climbing the Billboard Hard Rock chart. Her first EP, Pandora, dropped in April 2024, featuring collaborative production work with names like Photographic Memory, Kraus, and Grayskies. By 2025, she released her full-length debut, If Not Winter. Even in her ascent, Wisp seems to straddle two worlds: one of digital immediacy and viral exposure, and another of deeply felt emotional sincerity. Critics have labeled her sound “nu-gaze” or modern shoegaze, combining ethereal vocals with crashing textures and surging guitar layers. Her voice is airy, at times submerged behind sound; the contrast between softness and noise is central to her power.
I mention all that to set context: at the Fonda, she didn’t just deliver a performance, she affirmed a presence. In a genre that has long skewed white and male, she stood as living proof that the boundaries are shifting. She didn’t have to apologize for her identity—her music did the speaking. And better still, her two openers that night were also Asian American, as though she was carving a moment, however fleeting, of collective visibility in the alternative sphere.
Temachii walked on with a poet’s poise and left like a cult favorite. If you have not dipped into their catalog, the entry points are easy to find. The 2023 album flora maniia reveals a diaristic songwriter who blurs bedroom folk, gauzy indie, and art pop into pocket-sized reveries. Bandcamp shows Temachii based in San Antonio and frames the record as “handmade with love” — a telling phrase for how the songs feel live, intimate and carefully stitched. Follow-ups include the 2023 set akrasiia and 2024 singles like “not/lost,” which sketch a quiet evolution in color and confidence. Streaming footprint and socials back up what the room suggested: a grassroots artist with real traction.
On stage, Temachii leaned into restraint. Fingerpicked figures and featherlight melodics kept conversation-level dynamics, which had the unintended effect of making the crowd lean in. The hush was a choice and a flex. Spotify tallies north of six hundred thousand monthly listeners and a “This Is Temachii” editorial playlist signal that the discovery loop is already spinning. But it still felt like an underground win to watch an artist built on community and care hold a thousand people quiet
Dream, Ivory, by contrast, had a more visible lineage in the indie/shoegaze world. The duo, comprised of brothers Christian and Louie Baello, hail from Lake Elsinore, California. They began in 2016 with lo-fi, bedroom-pop and dream-pop sketches, releasing their self-titled EP in 2017, followed by Flowerhill Drive in 2018. Over the years, their sound has evolved, incorporating cleaner production and more pop-leaning elements while retaining atmospheric guitar textures. Their 2022 full-length album About a Boy further crystallized their shift into a more direct blend of indie rock and shoegaze influence. They’ve often drawn influence from acts like Beach House, Slowdive, and various dream-pop and shoegaze predecessors.
I’d seen them online, admired their following…and their fans greeted them on stage with familiarity. Their set had a confidence born not of sudden virality, but of patient growth. They balanced dreamy ambiance with punchy interludes; their older songs anchored the set, while newer material pointed toward even greater clarity and ambition. It felt like watching a band in motion, rather than a momentary burst of energy.
All of this reframed Wisp’s headlining set without overshadowing it. If Temachii offered quiet confession and Dream, Ivory radiated patient glow, Wisp delivered catharsis.
Her arrival onstage felt almost ceremonial, the lights dimming to a ghostly blue as she eased into Pandora, the opener that shares its name with her 2024 EP. It set the mood perfectly: dense and submerged, yet breathing. The way she transitioned into Enough for You and Mesmerized gave the sense of a slow awakening, her voice weaving in and out of distortion like a dream slipping between consciousness and memory. By the time she reached Mimi, the band had found its current: waves of reverb and fuzz folding around her voice, the crowd swaying like a single organism.
Midway through the set, Wisp leaned deeper into the emotional spine of If Not Winter, performing Save Me Now, Breathe Onto Me, and Guide Light in sequence. Hearing them live gave new dimension to what the album hinted at—tenderness under pressure, warmth hiding in the static. On record, these songs are sculpted and contained; in person, they breathed. If Not Winter and Sword came next, their melodies stretching and breaking apart under feedback, Wisp’s voice alternating between frail and furious. Couple with the stark stage/lighting production, these two performances hit particularly hard for me. So good.
The last act of the night was like a tide, rising, breaking receding…. See You Soon, Serpentine, Get Back to Me, and Black Swan. Each song felt like a release of something pent up, her lyrics often indistinguishable but emotionally legible. For the encore, she disarmed the room with a haunting cover of Coldplay’s Yellow, fragile, unvarnished, and slowed to the point of heartbreak, before closing with Your Face, the viral single that started it all. Hearing that song live, after an evening’s worth of emotional excavation, felt like coming full circle: the spark that ignited her rise now reframed as a promise of longevity.
Representation, of course, is not a genre. But it can be an accelerant. It changes who feels invited and what kinds of stories get told on a stage like the Fonda. Wisp’s rapid ascent from a viral spark to a national tour is already a proof point. Seeing Temachii on the same flyer in other cities, and Dream Ivory evolving into their next phase, hints at a broader ecosystem taking shape. That matters to younger listeners for obvious reasons. It also matters to those of us who did not grow up expecting to see our faces in the feedback of alternative music.
I left the venue with the usual ringing ears and the unusual feeling that the map had been redrawn a little. Not everything was loud. Not everything was soft. But everything felt possible. If the internet era has indeed bent the ladder, it has also widened the door. On nights like this, possibility stops being an abstract word and starts looking like a bill with three Asian or Asian American artists commanding a room because of the music first and the mirrors it offers second. That is what I came to see. That is what I saw.
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LIVE CLIPS
Wisp Brings Ethereal Power and Representation to the Fonda Theatre
