Saya Is A Grim Observer of the Roads Best Left Untravelled

At the top floor of an art studio on Queen Street West, Saya sits at the head of a long table, in a small white room. Upon first meeting her, the 22-year-old singer appears like a hologram—she's the kind you of girl you might've seen frequenting New York's infamous "Limelight" nightclub in the 90s, or dashing out of Camden's underground shows in London. Dressed in all black and wearing large framed glasses, an assortment of necklaces—a sword, a pendant and a chain—dangle across her chest. "All mediums of art inspire me. I love photography, I love film, I love poetry, I love old horror movies." She says, in a breathy, soft voice. "Everything art, I love."

Like many artists, Saya acknowledges her passion for singing and songwriting as being integral to her self-identity for as long as she can remember. "I've been singing my whole life. My mom said when I was younger I would lie out my stuffed animals in my crib and I would sing to them and perform to them," she laughs. "I've always known I wanted to be a performer. My parents were very supportive of that and my Dad encouraged me to go to arts school." Her father, a blues musician, and guitarist, and her mother who was really into disco, funk and soul music all bore influence to the singer's eclectic sound. "I was always around all kinds of music because my dad played blues, but he also really liked folk and Bob Dylan and stuff. I listened to everything growing up and then I started playing guitar because he always had them laying around the house."

The 22-year-old began gaining traction since premiering her first single and subsequent music video in 2016, "Wet Dreams." The bouncy pop tune, which has a notable 80s style ambience—heavy echo and synthesized piano chords—uniquely still manages to sound like an R&B slow jam during certain bars. As the video begins, an establishing shot of Saya appears as she gazes longingly into a mirror, before this image cuts away to a sequence of her strutting in a vermillion bathing suit down a long balcony at an old motel. Shortly after, the singer becomes a sensual, yet unstable and detached manic personality who eventually, murders her male counterpart in a bloody scene. "There's a side that likes sexuality and that loves vintage playboys and stuff. But I feel like there is a part of me that is very dark and I've been dealing with that," Saya explains. A year later, her sexual, yet chillingly dark allure arises once again in her music video for her single, "Cold Fire," off her first EP, Chills and Thrills (slated to drop sometime this summer).

Saya pole dances on stage at an old club, while mannequins watch. Inflictions of red and blue, and fire and light, thematically interject throughout, adding a clandestine mystique to a song whose message about nonchalant intimacy and "anti-love" was otherwise clear. "I thought about past friendships that became on and off, relationships at my disposal. I thought about the destructive person I know I can be. I guess I just put myself on blast for being ruthless and detached. I know I can be very selfish and that's what the song is about—my dark side. When I was writing it I pictured myself looking in a mirror—singing to myself, sort of like the devil on your shoulder tempting you to life's temporary pleasures."

Though the characters she plays in her visuals are deeply exaggerated to tell a story—and their respective realities heightened—in real life, Saya is the same confident, strong and self-assured young woman "I would describe my sound as sexual, empowered and freaky," she laughs. However, she divulges without concealment, that it hasn't always been this way.

Saya began first putting out country music when she was 15-years-old in response to isolation with peers at school and a yearning desire to fit in. Dating a hockey player prompted her to begin listening to the genre, and instantly, she felt she had her "in." "I never had friends so I really liked that I was accepted by these people," she recalls. "I felt like I was always insecure. Then I got to the point where I hated myself, and I was like, 'I don't like this.' It didn't feel authentic to me at all. It wasn't the sound I wanted to do, it wasn't personal." For the young artist, honesty is paramount now. "I base [my songs] off of personal experience most of the time. But a lot of it is kind of just fantasy and things I observe around me," she explains. "I hang out with people who don't necessarily make the best decisions, so I find their lifestyles interesting because I don't think I live like a super indulgent lifestyle. Their behaviour I find fascinating. I like to write about it."

Saya continues fumbling with her pendant and gazes up at the ceiling briefly while citing the sources of her most recent inspirations—Helmut Newton, Max Martin, Doc McKinney and Pharrell. "The way Kenneth Anger uses colour is really great. I just kind of like, love art that is vulnerable and raw and unfiltered," Saya explains. "[In my music] I like to highlight the human condition and things that we lust for. Even things that are negative about the human condition, like greed, revenge, sex and drugs. I find it all very interesting because it's a colourful world. I like people who used sound to its full extent and I consider myself a fusionist of sound and image." The most talented artists speak about music as if it completely consumes them—it is as if their skin oozes with sound and their heart beats to a melody. Saya is no different.

"Making music is like breathing to me. And it's what feels natural," she says passionately. "I'm not trying to prove people wrong—I'm trying to better myself. It's important to be in difficult or uncomfortable situations. It's the only way you can grow as an artist and as a person. People spend their whole lives trying to figure out who they are and what they want. Luckily, I've always known that I wanted to be a pop star."

Andrea Gambardella has never watched 'BLOOD+.' Follow her on Twitter.