Saya Gray, Elliott Skinner — live event
According to the credits, Saya Gray recorded the bulk of her new EP, QWERTY, on her floor. It's easy enough to imagine: Gray sprawled in a tangle of machinery, plucking strings and smashing buttons, funneled into a pinpoint focus that opens back up into deep, irreverent play. On her 2022 debut LP, 19 Masters, Gray embraced the gloss of pop while letting many of its rules soften. She played inside a soft-focus field that called to mind Nilüfer Yanya’s PAINLESS or Frank Ocean’s Blonde, scattered pieces occasionally congealing into patterns and then disintegrating again. On this 17-minute follow-up, she zeroes in on disintegration. The broad strokes of verse and chorus, anticipation and pleasure and denouement, seem to bore the hell out of Gray by this point. Rather than tensing and releasing in a recognizable narrative flow, QWERTY’s delights wash over you in currents. Forms crystallize and dissolve without fanfare. QWERTY lets the bottom drop out of an already loose songwriting approach, defecting from convention in favor of a bleary, semiconscious rush.
Starts: 2024-06-04T19:00:56Z
Ends: 2024-06-04T21:00:56Z
Where: 234 Starr Street, New York 11237, United States
Price: $27.4