Rina Sawayama - Rina

The Guardian 80

(Momoé Records)

If there’s one person who looms large over Rina Sawayama’s debut, it’s Britney Spears. The slightly nasal tones and aggressively synthetic production that characterised the pop star’s early career serve as a sonic moodboard for this mini-album, which also takes in R&B slink as well as the 90s penchant for a lo-fi phonecall sample. Opener Ordinary Superstar sees Britney meet Hannah Montana in the guise of a peppy paean to relatability, while Tunnel Vision enlists Shamir for a mournful slow jam about social media-based dejection. It can feel nostalgic at times – Sawayama is 27, this kind of super-slick factory pop would have presumably soundtracked her childhood – but on the record’s highlight, Alterlife, she manages to alchemise these influences into something bracing and modern. Recalling Grimes’s sensational 2015 album Art Angels, Alterlife starts by sounding like a spaceship taking off, before crashing down into a double-speed power ballad, replete with twinkling synths and an industrial guitar riff. Sawayama might be keen to pay tribute, but she’s proven she can shepherd pop into the future, too.