Rachael Sage & The Sequins have made “Under My Canopy,” an album billed as “an intimate musical refuge,” and I spent the first few songs trying to decide whether that was a promise or an invitation. By the third track, I had stopped deciding and simply moved in.
Sage is a lot of things at once: NYC-based folk-pop artist, activist, producer, visual artist, former New York City Ballet dancer, founder of MPress Records. The ballet detail kept nagging at me. These songs carry themselves like someone who knows exactly where their weight sits. Nothing stumbles.
The record wanders between Americana, pop, and neo-folk, and it opens doors you don’t expect. “Canopy Prelude” is a dusty, sliding instrumental, all twang and bending lead lines, a desert scene with nobody in it. Then “Canopy – Acoustic” arrives and fills that empty landscape with people. It pleads for peace and for gentler, more nurturing leadership, building into layered harmonies and wordless chants before fading into a lingering hum. I caught myself humming along, which felt a bit like signing a petition.
The love songs are almost disarmingly sweet. “Just Enough – Acoustic” bounces along on pure devotion, and “Everyday – Acoustic” is giddy anticipation set to a lilting, cascading melody. Both return later as Chamber Versions; the “Everyday” one starts in playful staccato and then swells into rich, sweeping harmony. Hearing the same feeling dressed up twice is oddly touching, like a friend repeating good news because they’re still excited about it.
But the album’s spine is tougher. “The Best Version – Acoustic” sits inside imposter syndrome, that gap between once craving admiration and now feeling estranged from yourself. “Underneath – Acoustic” is haunting and bleak, asking where healing could even begin. “Nexus – Acoustic” takes grief and turns it outward into a call for solidarity. “Kill The Clock – Acoustic” is the quirky, slightly anxious one, finding meaning in discarded, ordinary scenes while sensing a breaking point creeping closer.
The themes run wide: resilience, queer identity, self-acceptance, environmental consciousness, advocacy against gun violence. Then come a reverent “God Bless America” and the cinematic instrumental “Le Reve.” Placed in the same orbit as “Live It Up – Acoustic,” with its insistence that we only move forward together as equals, the hymn starts to sound like a prayer with a condition attached.
The Sequins, with Kelly Halloran on violin, Andy Mac on drums, Trina Hamlin on harmonica, and Dave Eggar and Ward Williams on cello, give the whole thing warmth without crowding it.
So: a refuge. But who is it for? Maybe anyone tired enough to need one, and brave enough to walk back out.
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