Our Origins feature series provides artists with a space to run through everything that went into their latest project. Today, Saya Gray breaks down her introspective single and video, “WISH U PICKED ME.”
Saya Gray gives herself the freedom to explore — and always brings the listener along for the ride.
The Canadian-Japanese artist’s latest, “WISH U PICKED ME,” is a largely acoustic track, but it’s not without its quirks. Unexpected melodies and unique production touches are becoming hallmarks of Gray’s sound — such flourishes are present elsewhere, too, on her new album 19 Masters (available today, June 9th via Dirty Hit).
Despite being raised in a house full of musicians, Gray shares that she spent a large amount of her time growing up alone. Isolation is a feeling that can grow, ebb, return, and change with time, and it’s this theme that runs (among others) through 19 Masters. It’s an overall reflective album, and chronicles her experiences in music up to the present, from her very musical childhood through her time playing and touring with fellow musicians all the way to today. “WISH U PICKED ME,” specifically, is a bit wistful, capturing the mood of a daydream that still feels just a bit eerie on the edges.
“19 Masters is really about a beginning to an end of a phase for me where I tried to fit in and conform to industry standards,” Gray tells Consequence. “It’s my journey through it, not above or below.”
Watch the artful video for “WISH U PICKED ME” below, and read on for her breakdown of the Origins for the track and its accompany visual.
Inner Dialogue:
Photo by Jessica Lewis Creative via Pexels
“WISH U PICKED ME” is an inner dialogue. I wrote and recorded it on a guitar that was left in some B&B. It feels like five different personalities wrote this song — an inner dialogue of sorts, and listening back I don’t really know which one to relate to most. Hence the title.
The Grinch:
The visualizer was inspired by the not quite fur, not quite hair of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. And also Jet Li. Jen Cheng did the visual, and she and I both love the nature of anticipation, and being a bit perverse.
Balloons:
Photo by Sagar Patil via Unsplash
I like balloons cause we never think about the containment of air — or air in general, and oxygen — until we’re extremely claustrophobic. Maybe I think too much, maybe I don’t! The visualizer is about finally being able to see aerial view on the situations that once entrapped our very being!
