Saya Gray

For Toronto outsider pop auteur Saya Gray, music is a glittering mosaic of endless influences.

Her body of work is akin to a sonic chimera; its limbs assembled from disparate, but complimentary musical organisms. Does she make pop? Folk? Rock? R&B? The moment you think you’ve got her pinned, she’s gone like a flash. “I'm constantly moving, physically and emotionally and spiritually” says Gray. “The influence of whatever's around you will always seep in. \[It’s why\] I've been a vagabond for a very long time.”

Gray’s often collage-like sonicspheres, blanketed with layers of riffs upon layers of electronic chatter, demonstrate the limitless potential of music as an art form. In an industry where music often feels constrained not only by genre, but by celebrity status and the demands of the streaming economy, Gray’s passion for raw experimentation serves as a model for what possibilities can arise when an artist quiets their superego and lets their id take the reins.

“The people coming \[to my shows\] are a mix of everything that I am,” she says. “Weird anime kids, old jazz heads… gender non-conforming people covered in tattoos. that’s just really cool to me… All these people are reflections of whatever they see in me, but in music. I can do 500 different things at the same time, so something in there reflects what they feel.”

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Under 16 years, with legal guardian. Under 6 years, no entrance.