​​​In the last year since the release of Wishy’s debut album, Triple Seven (via Winspear), the group of five have gotten quite used to lingering afterimage, learning to pose for editorial photo features and chime in with the suitable-enough answers to questions from taste-making music blogs who can’t seem to stop seeking them out for comment. It all makes sense, however, given the star-making quality of the band’s heartwarming brand of perfectly propulsive nonchalantly nostalgic tunes, capitalized with the Spring arrival of their 21-minute Planet Popstar EP.

Comprising and giving new life to bonus tracks that never made the August 2024 album, the EP’s 6 tracks are anything but discarded runts of the litter; instead, they’re strong enough to stand on their own. Expanding on the former release’s exhibition of heartfelt ‘minivan rock’, it plays out like the A-side of a homemade cassette submerged in a time capsule dated at the early aughts, with side B fittingly rounded out with tracks of similar feeling from Avril Lavigne, Liz Phair, Throwing Muses, The Cure, and My Bloody Valentine. One can picture a faded Lisa Frank sticker or a hand-written memo beckoning one to ‘Play Me’, written in glittery gel pen, adorning the tape’s plastic casing.

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Cover Photo by Emma Hintz