There’s something deeply funny about an album called Wish. Not “Dreams” or “Visions” or any other word you’d expect to be plastered across a Spotify mood playlist. Just Wish. Small. Scrappy. Half a thought. Which is exactly what makes Freidrich$’s debut so compelling: it refuses to dress itself up as anything bigger than it is. Across six tracks, he sketches out a universe that sounds stitched together from cracked laptop speakers, thrift-store keyboards, and whatever plugins he could pirate. The result isn’t some immaculate pop crossover. It’s bedroom cloudrap duct-taped into shape, radiating sincerity through the fuzz.
The album opens like a zine stapled together at 3 a.m., declaring itself with a kind of chaotic confidence. The production is messy in all the right ways; beats don’t land neatly, synths warp and detune, and yet everything holds because the imperfection is the point. This is music that wears its limitations as a badge of honor. It’s not trying to compete with major-label polish; it’s trying to capture what longing feels like when you’ve got a cracked phone screen and more feelings than outlets.
And crucially, Wish isn’t just Freidrich$ mumbling over lo-fi beats. The record has ambition. The opener, “The Moviegoer,” sets a cinematic tone, building a whole mood from little more than gauzy synths and echo-laden vocals. It feels half-finished but deliberately so, like a VHS tape that keeps glitching but somehow makes the movie better. From there, the record shifts gears without warning. “Passenger Princess” turns a car ride into a love song, leaning into indie-pop eccentricity. It’s breezy, awkward, and charming, like a demo that accidentally became the final cut because its rough edges made it real.
The middle of the album digs into Freidrich$’s fascination with the cosmic. “Zodiacal Astrology” and “Peep Tha Cosmos” aren’t just titles; they’re little reminders that for Gen Z, horoscopes and the vastness of space live in the same group chat as memes and breakup texts. The beats stay minimal, more skeletal sketches than fully fleshed-out productions, and the vocals are layered with just enough processing to sound both distant and confessional. It’s not grandiose, but it doesn’t need to be. These tracks succeed because they lean into the weird sincerity of asking the stars for advice when you know the stars don’t care.
Then, just when the record risks floating away, Freidrich$ pulls it back to earth with “What It Takes (Suga Suga).” This is the album’s closest thing to a traditional single, though “traditional” is a relative term here. The production is thicker, the drums hit harder, and the flow sharpens up. Still, it never shakes that bedroom-born looseness. It’s as if someone tried to make a proper pop song while recording through a half-broken mic in their closet and somehow that tension itself gives it life.
The closer, “Perfect As U R,” circles back to the record’s scrappy heart. Built around a bright, whistling sample and loose percussion, it doubles down on the lo-fi ethos. You can hear the seams in the mix, the way the vocals don’t quite sit right on the beat, the way the track threatens to unravel at any moment. But that’s the magic. Freidrich$ doesn’t smooth over the cracks because the cracks are the point. They’re where the sincerity leaks out.
Taken together, Wish doesn’t sound like a finished debut so much as a snapshot of a process. It’s not clean. It’s not consistent. And that’s exactly why it works. Where most new artists bend over backwards to prove they’re “serious,” Freidrich$ leans into the fact that he’s just figuring it out, and he makes you feel that in real time. Every half-formed beat, every slightly off vocal take, every decision to leave the rough draft intact; it all serves the bigger picture.
This is what separates Wish from the glut of algorithm-fodder cloudrap floating on SoundCloud right now. Most bedroom records try to mimic professional production and end up sounding like knock-offs. Wish doesn’t bother pretending. It’s scrappy, sincere, and just a little bit ridiculous. The songs stumble forward, fall over themselves, and then pick themselves back up. It’s the sound of someone learning how to turn longing into music without sanding off the mess that makes longing feel real.
And yes, you can trace the influences here: Quadeca’s grandiosity, gnash’s diary-pop honesty, the cloudrap minimalism that’s been floating around since the early 2010s. But the references never overwhelm the personality. If anything, they highlight the charm. Freidrich$ isn’t hiding behind style on Wish; he’s letting it crash into his own awkward sincerity, and the collisions are where the best moments happen.
Ultimately, Wish is not a “big” record. It’s not chasing stadium tours or Grammy nominations. What it offers instead is intimacy: the sense that you’ve stumbled into someone’s private wish, half-finished but fully felt. And that intimacy is rare, even precious, in a landscape where most debut albums arrive pre-packaged and sanded down. Freidrich$ gives us something messier, weirder, and because of all of that, more alive.
By the time the last notes fade, you realize the title isn’t ironic. It’s not naive, either. Wish is exactly what it says it is: a wish made real, fragile but shining, not burning out but becoming.
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About the Author
A tenured media critic known working as a ghost writer, freelance critic for various publications around the world, the former lead writer of review blogspace Atop The Treehouse and content creator for Manila Bulletin.
