It’s time to reflect on the year in music! This month, we’ll be highlighting Jam of Today’s favourite albums of 2025. Working our way up to the #1 album, which will be revealed on the 31st of December, we’ll go one by one past this year’s favourites. Today, our #16: ‘If Not Winter‘ by Wisp.

Of course, there’s certain pop stars whose rise to fame has been even more impressive but still, today’s artist is definitely amongst those with some of the biggest breakthroughs of the last few years. Funny thing is, you might’ve not even heard of her: Wisp is the moniker of 21-year-old Natalie Lu who within a matter of literal days took the established shoegaze revival by the hand and elevated it to the next level. With her beautifully ethereal dream pop, Wisp skyrocketed herself to fame amongst an entire generation of young music lovers.

More often than one likes, social media platforms prove to be the ultimate gateway into going viral. Outlets like TikTok or Instagram swiftly turn into people’s personal portfolios and therefore frequently tend to blast young talents into the void that is the entertainment industry, though the term ‘talent’ is often mistaken for some random influencer or cheesy singer-songwriter singing about their broken teenage heart. Not often does actual talent rise through the ranks of the algorithm so an artist like Wisp popping up seemingly out of nowhere is quite the rarity. Thank god, this time it’s more than just a novelty.

Right from the get go, Wisp’s career took a rapid turn through debut single ‘Your face’, a song featuring the young prodigy singing over a rock instrumental she found on YouTube. This all resulted in Wisp going viral days after this song had been recorded, eventually also turning follow-up releases ‘Enough for you, ‘See you soon’, and ‘Pandora’ off of her debut EP sharing that last single’s name into a big success. Within the blink of an eye, Wisp had become a household name for teens listening to shoegaze, resulting in a big online following and sold out shows all over the globe. A year onwards and there’s ‘If Not Winter’, a debut album slightly restoring my faith in viral music.

Due to her rapid breakthrough, Wisp has already been dubbed the current ‘shoegaze princess’ and listening to her debut album makes that sound like a very fitting nickname. ‘If Not Winter’ is chock full of fazey shoegaze; 12 dreamy rock songs featuring softly murmured vocals which almost turn this album into some kind of non-existent ASMR music sub genre at times. It’s extremely atmospheric, as you would expect, though scratching the surface makes you notice that it’s not all just as perfect as it seems. There’s quite some cheesy lyrics here and there and the balance between shoegaze and dream pop is perhaps not as strong as one would expect but bar the odd forgettable song, ‘If Not Winter’ impresses as an album that is fully catered towards this upcoming demographic of shoegaze enjoyers. Besides, in a time where everybody and their aunt seem to go viral with whatever content they poop out, it’s nice to hear the odd talent rise up and take over the scene as they deserve.