Rachel Sage's Nexus Acoustic Is the Queer Anthem We All Needed Right Now
Photo by Anna Azarov
Rachael Sage & The Sequins' new album, Canopy, is a diverse collection of songs that feel like a refuge, woven from resilience, longing, and the irrepressible determination to find light in the darkest places.
Following on the heels of her two latest recordings – her 2023-2024 critically acclaimed pairing, The Other Side and Another Side – this debut full-band release as Rachael Sage & The Sequins spotlights Sage’s longtime group and continues her ongoing journey of storytelling, reinvention, and emotional connection.
Confidently spanning the genres of Americana, pop and neo-folk, Sage and her band offer listeners a beautifully crafted, deeply heartfelt collection of songs that find common ground in themes of living a purposeful and joyful life rooted in inclusiveness, equality and non-violence.
Reflective, mournful but optimistic, Canopy is one of her most soulful and thought-provoking works yet.
Photo by Shervin Lainez
If you haven't heard of Rachel Sage yet, consider this your introduction - and your new obsession.
The New York-based alt folk pop artist has been quietly building one of the most compelling catalogues in queer music for years. A six-time Independent Music Award winner and longtime LGBTQ+ advocate, Rachel blends gorgeous chamber folk instrumentation - think piano, cello, violin, harmonica - with lyrics that crack you open in the best possible way. She's toured with Ani DiFranco, opened for artists across the US, UK and Europe, and now, she's finally on our radar here in Australia.
Her latest release, Nexus Acoustic, is a stripped-back, intimate reimagining of her song "Nexus" - a tribute to Nex Benedict, the non-binary teenager whose death after severe bullying at school shook the LGBTQ+ community to its core in 2024. This acoustic version doesn't soften the grief. If anything, it pulls you closer. Rachel describes it as asking the listener "to come in more, to listen a little more to the lyrics" - and that's exactly what it does.
“We have to find ways to be resilient, to feel empowered, to heal trauma”
What makes Rachel's music so powerful is that she refuses to let pain be the final word. As she told us in our LOTL Lounge conversation, she didn't want Nexus to sit purely in the dark. "We have to find ways to be resilient, to feel empowered, to heal trauma," she says. "Often the best way to do that is to admit when things are not okay and when we need each other's help and support." For a queer community that knows both grief and joy intimately, that balance feels deeply true.
The music video for Nexus was filmed with LGBTQ+ artists and allies, and Rachel describes the energy on set as "dreamlike" — full of silliness, laughter, and genuine emotional weight.
She shared her own story of bullying with the cast beforehand, including the devastating loss of a bandmate who took his own life after fearing coming out to his family. The result is a video that feels like community, not just content.
Nexus Acoustic is also a preview of what's coming on Rachel's forthcoming album, Under My Canopy — a record built around themes of safety, shelter, and the kind of flexible, open community that queer people are so good at building for each other. The title metaphor is beautiful: a canopy as a structure with open sides, where people can come and go freely, and always be their truest selves.
For Australian listeners, Rachel is very much a wish-list artist in terms of touring - she's been "begging her agent" to get her here for years. But the connection already exists: her music has appeared on Dance Moms (huge in Australia, apparently), she holds an Australian publishing deal with Mushroom Publishing, and she's toured alongside artists with devoted fanbases down under.
The message she wants to leave us with? It's simple and it's everything: when things are toughest, we uplift each other. In a world that keeps finding new ways to target and harm queer and trans people, that's not a cliché - it's a call to action wrapped in a beautiful melody.
Listen to The LOTL Lounge S1E3 - featuring Rachael Sage
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Prefer audio? Here’s the full conversation with Tullara in podcast format.
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