Saya Gray Announces New EP 'Qwerty II'

Last year, Japanese-Canadian artist Saya Gray released a 7-track EP called QWERTY - not just a body of music, but a statement of intent of what was to come. The project quickly expanded to include visual art (in tandem with her long term creative collaborator Jennifer Cheng) and a handful of live shows that captivated those in attendance with the pin drop intimacy on display.

Today, Gray has announced the next chapter in her journey - entitled QWERTY II, and out on March 28th via Dirty Hit, it continues to demonstrate her unique, collage-like way of making music. Born out of the large periods of 2023 she spent in studious isolation and her healthy fear of the ever encroaching digital world, the 7 tracks perfectly demonstrate her stunningly detailed compositions.

Speaking about the new release, and its relationship to what came before Gray describes it as “a collection of ideas and collages stuck together as the ying to the yang of the first half”. News of the EP follows the three new tracks she released late last year - a triptych she describes as the bridge between both QWERTY EPs and another reminder of why she is one of the most exciting, up and coming musicians operating today.

Today Gray also releases the video for brand new single "AA  BOUQUET  FOR  YOUR  180  FACE" an air-tight composition that sees Gray endlessly counting days on a calendar over scattering percussion and tightly clipped bass guitar (Gray's primary instrument). Speaking about the track Gray writes that “180 face is my bass moment off of qwerty ii EP it's about a spooky moody boy with a 180 face”

Watch the Jennifer Cheng directed video for "AA  BOUQUET  FOR  YOUR  180  FACE" HERE:

About Saya Gray

In 2022, Saya Gray released a collection of songs that introduced the world to her incandescent music - entitled 19 MASTERS, it demonstrated her unique ability to create a collage of sounds that felt both comforting and disorienting, vast yet intimate.

Last year, she returned with brand new music, a body of work that signified an exciting new chapter, the tightly packed yet thoroughly exhilarating EP: QWERTY - a multi-faceted project that will continue further into the year, consisting of recorded music, live shows and visuals. The first part consisted of a 7-track EP released in May on Dirty Hit (Wolf Alice, Rina Sawayama, beabadoobee) and perfectly encapsulates her genuinely unique method of creation.

Sensing the ever encroaching threat the modern digital world places on her mental health, and following a period of loss and grief, Saya entered a period of isolation to set about sampling and compiling existing snippets she compulsively records with an almost always-on tape machine.

Whether it's voice notes from three years ago, a sample of her drummer playing Jungle rhythms or a ridiculous thrash riff her brother interrupted the sessions to play her - it all gets fed through an MPC to create a body of work far greater than the sum of its parts - as Saya herself describes it, she puts ‘1000 personalities in one song'. It's this unfiltered, frenzied approach to her art that she feels is necessary to reclaim her sense of self in an ever changing world.

Photo by Leeay

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