Rina Sawayama, high priestess of actually interesting pop music, has announced that work has begun on her second album. The news came a year to the day after her debut SAWAYAMA dropped; a long-awaited record that, racked up critical acclaim and spawned singles like “XS” and Bloodpop-produced banger “Lucid”.
On Twitter, Rina celebrated album one’s successes over the weekend. “This album literally changed my life,” she wrote. “I remember being scared + insecure whilst writing this album, cos I felt like an outsider to the pop world. This feeling was exacerbated by countless meetings with labels who weren’t into it, but I knew that I had to do it the way I wanted to otherwise I would get sad.”
She went on to thank the people who made it all possible — including her label Dirty Hit — before revealing that she’d started crafting its sequel: “btw I’ve already started album 2 with [Clarence Clarity] and I love it,” she wrote. “put next to SAWAYAMA its gonna cover all musical bases.”
Clarence Clarity was the executive producer behind much of Sawayama’s debut, so it’s good to know she’s stuck close to a collaborator who’s helped fine-tune some of her biggest tracks so far. At this point, Rina’s name has blown up in pop circles globally, so it will be interesting to see if she invites any high profile artists on to it too. As for covering all music bases? Well, considering the eclecticism of SAWAYAMA, we’re intrigued to see how this manifests. Fans have replied to the original tweet asking for “another metal song” and “more house” which we wholeheartedly approve of. We’re desperate for another megawatt club banger like “Lucid”, which was produced by the man behind much of Gaga’s Chromatica (though Rina and Bloodpop were pals before that album);
Following her released of the remixed ballad “Chosen Family” with Elton bloody John and news that Rina might make an appearance on a Chromatica remix record and we’ve got plenty of material to tide us over until RS2 arrives. As for when we should expect it? No word yet. Keep tight and stream “XS”.