RAIA WAS

NY-based songwriter/producer Raia Was is pleased to share her new single "What It Feels Like" out now on the newly launched Switch Hit Records. The musician-run cooperative record label co-found and run by Arthur Moon's Lora-Faye Åshuvud, Cale Hawkins and Raia Was is committed to giving artists 100% of the profits from their work.

"What It Feels Like" is on all streaming services for any playlist. The song features an all-female lineup of collaborators including Rachel Alina (mix / master), Fazed Films (produced and directed by Fazed Films, director of photography Lucy Blumenfeld, edited by Camila Grimaldi), and Allison Pasquesi (wearable art in music video).

The song marks the beginning of a new era for Raia Was, making her debut as sole- producer with the first single since her song "You Are" was featured in HBO’s Euphoria (Season 2). Raia breaks out of her shell, fearlessly embracing her artistic vision and digging into the lush catharsis that has defined her music to date.

“I wrote 'What It Feels Like' about the experience of saying exactly what I mean, the moment of free-fall where I’m positive the world will end, I’m positive abandonment lurks just around the corner, and then... nothing. The world is just as I left it. I’m constantly seeking to give sound to what I think of as the ‘gray matter’ of life, the feelings and sensations that fill our days beyond the milestones and heartbreaks that define so much of our lived experience in the world.”

Raia Was is a mainstay in the NY indie music community, being raised in downtown Manhattan and performing as a teenager in piano bars on The Lower East Side, accumulating hundreds of hours of performance experience before beginning her professional career.  

Raia Was creates alt-pop that is dark, lustrous and contemplative and has an exceptional ability to push the boundaries of genre and create magnetic work that is honest in its exploration of the intricacies of identity. 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 received praise from All Things Go, Flaunt Magazine, Blackbook Magazine, Slumber and Audio Femme and more.