SOUNDTRACK: RINA SAWAYAMA-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert (April 19, 2021).
Rina Sawayama had one of the most compelling album covers of last year (see below). I expected her music to be out of this world. The little I heard was a little disappointingly poppy. But this Tiny Desk Home Concert perks things up a bit
Rina Sawayama is back in the office, clad in a periwinkle blazer with waist cut-outs and a high ponytail cleaner than the view of the city skyline. Make no mistake: even in fluorescent lighting, the Japanese British pop star performs with the same tenacity and drama you hear in her 2020 debut album, SAWAYAMA, a lustrous pop epic peppered with early aughts R&B, nu-metal and classic rock.
She starts with “Dynasty” which has some deep keyboard bass from Geordan Reid-Campbell and strings from the string quartet (Braimah Kanneh-Mason: violin; Ayla Sahin: violin; Didier Osindero: viola; Jonah Spindel: cello). Then Vic Jamieson adds a quiet sense of distortion with the electric guitar.
Tears calcify in “Dynasty,” a song like a salve to wounds inherited from generations past. The heaviness of the music never overshadows her voice, which ascends heroically. “Won’t you break the chain with me?” she belts out.
Heavy drums from Simone Odaranile shifts the song to a more rocking orchestral sound. Backing vocalists Phebe Edwards and Desrinea Ramus add some lovely additions. Jamieson solos and then the song gets big and intense with some impressively powerful vocals.
She says she’s been dying to play this. She was meant to go on tour last year–this is the first time we’ve played “Dynasty” live.
As if turning the other cheek, Sawayama swiftly moves into the sweet, cha-ching pop of “XS.”
I would never describe this song as sweet or cha-ching. “XS” opens with deceptively quiet strings and Jamieson on the acoustic guitar. She speaks quietly and the song jumps to the main heavy descending powerful riff. The chorus is stop and start and full of hooks. It’s a pretty great song.
She ends the set with “Chosen Family.” She says that the song is dedicated to people who are not accepted by their parents for who they are: their sexual orientation or gender identity or anything else–and this is a pure and honest love song to my friend (my chosen family) who have gone through this. Then amazingly she says she got a call from Elton John who said he wanted to work on the song with her!
the soft-hearted ballad “Chosen Family,” rendered in the style of her 2021 collaboration with Elton John. The song was reborn, in part, because of John’s admiration for Sawayama and her ability to cross-pollinate genres, but also because the two held “Chosen Family,” both the song and concept, dearly.
It’s a beautiful straightforward ballad. And if you’re at all human, it will easily tug at your heart strings.
[READ: May 9, 2021] “Future Selves”
This story opens with a young married couple looking for an apartment to buy. They had been renting but were looking to upgrade–get a real kitchen, a bathroom without chipped tiles.
They looked at smaller, impeccably restored places, but they seemed too small; they looked at a loft ion factory building–it was spacious and allowed for lots of privacy for each of them but there was no community around it–no café for them to sit in and talk .
It was a tough decision.
Around the same time, she had gone to visit her cousin at college. Tara was fully enjoying herself and had lots of friends–boys and girls (one of whom she had a crush on). There was also Simon, a kind of hanger-on. He was soft spoken and friendly, but a step behind everyone else.
When she returned home, Tara had posted some pictures of them together. Tara said that when they finally settled on a place, she’d love to stay with them. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 