As a project predicated on the unique creative chemistry between siblings, it feels apt that
Will Gao and Olivia Hardy’s second EP is named Isotope. Two distinct branches of the same
tree, as Wasia Project they’ve spent the last five years applying their classical training to
wide-eyed jazz-pop, racking up tens of millions of streams, and securing US support dates
with Laufey and a European arena tour with Tom Odell. Now they’re expanding their horizons
even further, pairing their genre-bending pop with an impressive audio-visual concept.

“It’s about using this platform to merge our voices,” Olivia explains of the EP’s focus. “We’re
filtering our experiences through the lens of a single character, in a very vulnerable and
personal way.” In doing so, the London-based duo document a period of intense personal
transformation, as they navigate the uncertain path not just from adolescence to adulthood,
but from anonymity to acclaim. As Will puts it: “In the last three years, we’ve experienced
more change than we have in our whole lives put together.”

Still just 19 and 21 respectively, Olivia and Will were born in Croydon, South London, to a
British father and Beijing-born mother. They developed an appreciation for the arts from an
early age, taking in poetry, theatre and the eclectic musical tastes of their parents, which
ranged from Western and East Asian classical music to jazz and pop. Today, the pair fondly
recall car journeys soundtracked by ELO and the Beatles, and kitchen discos to Wham, Bee
Gees and ABBA, which cut a sharp contrast with their individual musical studies. Both
prodigious talents, Olivia learned violin via the Suzuki method while Will practised classical
piano and sang in renowned choral group, the Trinity Boys Choir.

Initially, Will struggled to consolidate his musical identities: “I saw piano as this rigorous,
classical thing, and my dad showing us old records as something completely separate. Once I
realised that you take culture, you take your life, and then you put it into your art, that was
the lightbulb moment for me.”

Olivia and Will were 14 and 16 when they first started writing together. They began uploading
GarageBand demos to SoundCloud soon after, picking the portmanteau Wasia Project as a
playful reference to their British Asian heritage. As Olivia explains, over time the moniker has
accrued a much deeper significance. “It really captures that classic mixed cultural thing:
you’re not fully in one culture or the other, so there's always this yearning between the two.”
Will agrees: “I’ve never been more proud of the name than I am now. I’m proud of us being
open to our own ideas, and to our differences.”

The duo’s musical journey began in 2019 with ‘why don’t u love me’, a hushed laptop
production balancing muted piano and a swinging beat with Olivia’s pillow-soft melisma. It
was subsequently re-recorded for their debut EP, how can i pretend, which arrived in 2022 with
production from Luke Pinnell of London’s Suedejazz Collective. Other highlights from the EP
included the sprightly jazz-pop of ‘impossible’ and the delicate, Yann Tiersen-esque ballad ‘ur
so pretty’. It was the latter that would prove the band’s breakout moment, after appearing in
series two of Heartstopper – the Netflix LGBTQI+ drama in which Will also stars as Tao Xu.
It speaks volumes of the duo’s drive that for the last few years Will has been balancing acting
– and Olivia academia – with burgeoning musical stardom. Will traces that tenacity back to
their mother: “She came from a very different place culturally and economically to where she
is now. She worked so hard to settle here [in the UK] so she definitely taught us how to
hustle.”

Though their dual heritage has always informed their outlook, on Isotope it’s subtly shaping
their songwriting like never before. Listen closely and you’ll hear it in the snatched pentatonic
runs that punctuate stunning baroque-pop single ‘Is This What Love Is?’, and in the
atmosphere of existential yearning underpinning the swooning ballad ‘Takes Me Back Home’.
Olivia cites their recent trip to visit family in Beijing and Qinling as being hugely influential
on the latter.

“Because of the pandemic, I hadn’t been back in six years, and I found the whole experience
pretty overwhelming. Little things would keep taking me back to previous visits, but from a
different perspective, like I was looking down on my life.”

Throughout the EP, the familiar warmth of nostalgia dovetails with the discomfort of the
unknown, as the duo process experiences of love, anxiety, confusion and hope through a
singular voice. “Why did I have to meet you / I was happy where I was,” Olivia rues on
‘Somebody Come Through’ over staccato bass and a frenetic Motorik rhythm. Sonically, the
song picks up where last year’s standalone single ‘Petals On The Moon’ left off, using soaring
indie-pop as a foil for Olivia’s supple vocal. Boasting an effortless depth and sweetness
comparable to Billie Eilish or Natalie Mehring of Weyes Blood, her tone is arguably at its most
stunning on the torch song 'Takes Me Back Home', cocooned amongst soft piano, the low
hum of organ and the gentle swell of strings. Elsewhere, ‘To Get Better’ sees Will lending his soothing tones to a tale of self-doubt thatfeatures devastating confessions like, "How horrible it feels to be panicking / And, oh, how
unsolvable to feel like I’m out of control." A gorgeous slow-burn, it climaxes in a sonorous
solo from guitarist Michael Jablonka.

Isotope was demoed last September, and recorded at London’s prestigious RAK Studios in
January 2024 with ‘Petals On The Moon’-producer St. Francis Hotel (Michael Kiwanuka, Little
Simz). As classical music scholars, they were keen to exploit the possibilities of the studio,
arranging strings to bring their cinematic vision to life. The results are showcased on
instrumental EP-closer ‘Tell Me Lies’, a deeply romantic epic embellishing Will’s
Rachmaninoff-inspired piano theme with symphonic strings. ‘Interlude’ is similarly
atmospheric, combining ticking beats and subaqueous synth sounds with woozy,
pitch-shifted vocals.

Rather than providing standalone videos for the songs, the duo have created a short film,
divided into chapters, in collaboration with Creative Director Charlie Drinkwater (Lianne La
Havas, Dermot Kennedy, Fontaines DC) and director Charles Gall (English Teacher, Last Dinner
Party, Nothing But Thieves). Working with visual reference points including Wong Kar-Wei,
Paris Texas and the photography of Daidō Moriyama, the film sees Olivia and Will cast as a
single character, and tracks their struggle to navigate a series of labyrinthine scenarios.

It’s a suitably ambitious undertaking for a band who are motivated by a deep-seated desire
to connect with listeners on a global scale. Olivia explains, “There’s a phrase in Mandarin,
‘Jiayou Jiayou’, which means, ‘You can do it!’ It’s helpful to keep that in mind at this age, when
there’s so much angst and it feels scary to go through so much change. Ultimately, I think of
our music as the aural equivalent of that: it tells listeners that they’re not the only ones going
through it.”