Latest news with #SayaGray
CBC
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Watch Charlotte Day Wilson's sensational orchestral performance at Roy Thomson Hall
In February, Charlotte Day Wilson brought new life to her songs while accompanied by an orchestra at Toronto's Roy Thomson Hall. It was the first Canadian edition of Red Bull Music's Symphonic series, which has included Metro Boomin and Rick Ross in the past. Now, the whole concert is available to stream on Crave and YouTube. "I've always had such a deep love of music, and this night feels like a huge arrival for me in so many ways," said Day Wilson at the show. "I've always felt this deep sense of gratitude for the songs that have defined my life, tonight I'd like to pay homage to some of those songs." WATCH | Charlotte Day Wilson takes over Roy Thomson Hall: The 39-piece Symphonic Orchestra, led by conductor Lucas Walden, brought immense gravitas to her already moving soul songs Work, Mountains and more. Over the course of the show, Day Wilson performed songs from across her discography, including her collaborations with alt-jazz trio Badbadnotgood. Her covers of Joni Mitchell's A Case of You, Carole King's So Far Away and Jimmy Ruffin's What Becomes of the Brokenhearted, were a gorgeous nod to the musicians that shaped her. There were also two surprise guests, Toronto's Saya Gray and British singer and producer Sampha, who incited massive cheering from the audience. Watch the full concert above.
CBC
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
How Saya Gray turned voice notes into critical acclaim
Saya Gray began playing in bands as a teenager, eventually touring with Daniel Caesar and even Willow Smith. While she was on the road, she began crafting an album out of voice notes. She's now a few years into a critically acclaimed solo career.
The Guardian
21-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Saya Gray: Saya review – oddball heartbreak anthems bounce around pop history
If not a genuine oddball, Saya Gray is at least a very entertaining self-stylist. A self-proclaimed 'vagabond', she has talked about having ESP and perfect pitch from birth. The Toronto producer and vocalist's debut album proper can't possibly live up to all this bluster but it is a thoroughly enjoyable ride: a set of elastic, translucent songs that draw equally from quirked-up TikTok music – think Kate Nash-style vocals, dreamy Frank Ocean production – as they do yacht rock, country and AOR. Most contemporary genre-mash music is unsatisfying because it feels like the result of an inability to commit; Gray's clear, direct, idiosyncratically referenced songs don't have that problem. Puddle (of Me) sounds a little like Björk covering America; Thus Is Why (I Don't Spring 4 Love) is a three-and-a-half minute survey of every popular sound circa 2009. There's a universality to Gray's lyrics – which, on Saya, are generally about heartbreak – that feels particularly sturdy and comforting on a crisp, serene song like Thus Is Why. The more traditional songs here – Puddle and How Long Can You Keep Up a Lie in particular – place Gray in a lineage of sharp-tongued romantics, though their effect is blunted some by self-consciously 'experimental' passages, like the percussive breakdown on Line Back 22 or the trap beats at the beginning of HBW and Exhaust the Topic, which feel drawn straight from a playbook titled Weird, But Not Too Weird, Things to Do on a Pop Album. In these moments, she sounds like everyone else. But elsewhere on Saya, Gray has the makings of a true original.
