Raia Was - Captain Obvious (2023)

Accompanying the release of her new record Captain Obvious, Raia Was performs an intimate reimagining of the album as solo installation at National Sawdust. The songwriter, pianist, vocalist, and producer has become known for her darker take on art-pop, with ruminative lyricism that oscillates between brooding intensity and cathartic euphoria. She has performed since she was a teenager and her stagecraft reflects that practice as she meticulously plots her live shows and the unique sense of color and space that brings her music to life.

About Raia Was

With her name nodding to the past, Raia Was is the project of an old soul. Raised by her mother in Downtown Manhattan, she began performing as a teenager, holding a weekly residency at a piano bar on Avenue B and accumulating hundreds of hours of performance experience before beginning her professional career. Having grown up in the scene, Raia Was is a mainstay within the NY indie community, recording and touring as a vocalist and keyboard player before finally stepping into her own solo project as a performer.

Raia Was has an exceptional ability to push the boundaries of genre and create magnetic work that is honest in its exploration of the intricacies of everyday life. She performs a controlled suite of music with a rare brooding intensity and haunting sense of color and space set amidst her irreverent mix-and-match approach to live arranging.

Her debut LP "Angel I'm Frightened" (released 2021) earned her a feature in HBO’s Euphoria with her song "You Are" and was created alongside illustrious producer/performer Autre Ne Veut. Now as she prepares to debut as sole-producer on her sophomore album "Captain Obvious", her stylized take on experimental pop is being placed in the company of Weyes Blood, Mitski and Kate Bush. "Everyone who jumped on the Kate Bush bandwagon after 'Stranger Things' should get on board the Raia Was bus” (Riff Magazine).