​Rachael Sage & the Sequins (from the album Canopy

​Rachael Sage & the Sequins (from the album Canopy

​Rachael Sage & the Sequins (from the album Canopy available on MPress Records) (by Danny McCloskey)
The music of Rachael Sage is mesmerizing. Her blend of Jazz, Pop, Folk, Rock, and Blues defies description on Canopy, her latest release, as it stages the songwriter as a chanteuse performing in a cabaret setting. A whispered accounting of self guides “The Best Version” with experiential advice as a piano march leads the way across the instrumental “Le Reve” and lets the majesty of the sentiment in “God Bless America” glide over a subtle arrangement that powerfully courses underneath. Promises are made on the flow of “Belong to You” as Rachael Sage encourages “Live It Up” on regimented rhythms as she equally emboldens The Sequins to percolate on the staggered groove of “Kill the Clock”.
The music floats like a mist that wraps around Rachael Sage as she ponders life in a modern-day existence with “Underneath”, cruising on a rhythmic patter with her version of Buddy Holly’s “Everyday” and putting observations of her own life into the story in “Nexus”. Using her own description of the album, Rachael Sage feels that ‘Canopy is the first album that I feel reflects every aspect of my artistry, not only as a singer, producer, and musician, but also as a songwriter. I’d like to say this is because the album is full of brand-new songs, but some of them were composed when I was a teenager or in my 20’s. They’re among the most honest lyrics I’ve ever written, but it very quickly formed an almost visceral image of an entire album focused on inclusiveness, acceptance, safety and empathy started to crystallize in my mind’.
 
The Canopy title track stands tall with its truths, stating ‘if the world were run by women there would be an end to war’. The finger-pointing words that Rachael Sage offers come from a specific space, and she gave the backstory saying that the song ‘just fell out after one too many late-night doomscrolls where the amount of violence and discord I digested in the span of a few minutes was so intense and so demoralizing that I wanted to crawl into a hole and stay there’. There is a beauty to the rhythms, and a peaceful feeling from the words of Rachael Sage & The Sequins. She expresses her own love when she opens Canopy with “Just Enough”, closing out the album with a version of the tune dubbed “Just Enough (Chamber Version)” as well as an additional cover take on Buddy Holly in “Everyday (Chamber Version)”. (by Danny McCloskey)
 
Listen and buy the music of Rachael Sage & the Sequins from AMAZON
Please go to the Rachael Sage & the Sequins website for more purchase and artist information