Rina Sawayama has revealed that she’s recorded “40 or 50” new songs over the last two years in an update posted to social media today (June 30).
The musician and actor gave the update in a new video, in which she also shared news of work on the upcoming John Wick spin-off, Caine.
In the post, Sawayama said “we were long overdue for a catchup” and gave fans the update while she got ready, sharing her make-up routine as she did.
Sawayama said “contrary to popular belief” she had “actually been doing stuff” and joked that she hadn’t just been “chilling” before revealing how busy she’s been with work over the last two years.
Sawayama said she was currently on a break from shooting Caine, the John Wick spin-off movie. The film is a continuation of Cane’s story in the franchise, played by Donnie Yen, and his “unfinished business” with Sawayama’s character in the film, Akira. Sawayama said she had been training “really intensely for two months” for the part and is in the “best shape of [my] life”.
Sawayama also revealed she had finished shooting a new Apple TV series Prodigies, which she said was “so fun” before revealing “in between that” she had been “writing music for about two years, which is the longest I’ve really spent on a record.”
The artist explained she had done “so many trips around the world” to record, and then explained that she had made “maybe 40 to 50 songs” in total.
She said the experience had been “really fun” and that she was now in the stage of “finishing a lot of the music that I have already written. It’s very forensic science at this point and I’m taking apart every single line and re-writing, putting harmonies [on], changing the harmonies…it’s all a balance. But that to me is what makes a song a song.”
@rinasawayamaofficial We were long overdue for a catchup… get ready with me ✨ @GODMODE BEAUTY
She also explained that she had recorded “lots of music with lots of different producers” while she was “trying to find the right person to work with.” She went on to say she had now found that person and her team, but didn’t reveal names at this stage.
While Sawayama didn’t open up about the sound of the music, she did say something about its style, saying “for the album campaign, I might do a much more natural make-up look so that I can just be myself and give more to the performance.” You can watch the full video above.
The singer made her feature film debut in 2023’s John Wick: Chapter 4 as Shimazu Akira, the concierge at the Osaka Continental Hotel and the daughter of Hiroyuki Sanada’s Shimazu Koji, who is the hotel manager and a friend of Keanu Reeves’ lead character.
Along with starring in the film, Sawayama also contributed a song to the soundtrack titled ‘Eye For An Eye’.
Speaking to NME in September about landing the role, Sawayama said: “My team are all just so shook by the idea that we even got offered John Wick, so I think… none of us really know what’s gonna happen. We’re just like, ‘What does happen to people in movies?’”
Meanwhile, in an interview with Vogue Japan, the musician revealed that her upcoming album will be her darkest and most emotional yet.
“The world feels darker and more uncertain than ever,” she said. “Pop music can sometimes be an escape, but I want to reflect reality — to express negative emotions through sound rather than hide from them,” she told the publication.
The as-yet-untitled record follows her 2022 release ‘Hold The Girl‘. In a five star review of that album, NME said: “Sawayama’s second album is defined by her ability to fashion each of these sounds into big, brilliant pop songs. The best British pop album of the year.”