Raveena’s music has a delightfully pacifying effect, like slipping beneath a down blanket at the end of the night. Her delicate voice is typically set to acoustic guitar melodies and spacious percussion, an established sound that the New York singer-songwriter has spent the past few years tinkering with. She suggested a shimmery new direction with last year’s one-off single “Tweety,” a blast of Y2K R&B nostalgia whose shift in vocal and production styles was welcome: The pillow-soft songs on her 2019 debut could go down easy, but they were relaxed to a fault. Raveena’s luminous sophomore album, Asha’s Awakening, is a throat-clearing moment for the singer, drawing on both Western and South Asian inspirations and collaborations for a blend of dance-friendly R&B songs and soothing ballads, each of which stands on her distinctive, quiet strength.
Asha’s Awakening is a concept album from the perspective of a Punjabi space princess. Raveena uses this otherworldly construct to ruminate on personal growth, modern culture, and relationships over butter-smooth backdrops. The standout “Rush” melds laidback guitar and radiant synths into the type of blissed-out song destined to drift over summer picnics. Raveena has always excelled in this mode, but here she takes bigger risks, especially when she ups the tempo. “Kismet,” a breezy highlight fueled by joyous handclaps and keys, sails on a lithe bassline and rhythmic verses in Hindi and English. On the flirty “Secret,” Vince Staples provides Raveena with a slick counterpoint over a low bassline and swarmandal, riffing on the Bollywood-sampling production trend of the early 2000s to playfully create something that’s entirely her own.
Asha’s Awakening breaks up the pace in its latter half, with mixed results. On the spoken-word interlude “The Internet Is Like Eating Plastic,” she wryly muses on technology’s grip on her attention, but her blunt platitudes slide into cliché. (“The internet has me stupid and smart at the same time,” while relatable, doesn’t offer much insight.) The album also ends with a 13-minute guided meditation in which Raveena encourages mindfulness over birdsong and buzzing synths. The overlong addendum feels tacked on, a bonus track to reaffirm the distilled sense of tranquility the album has already achieved.
That serene aspect is mainly borne out through the album’s lush production. Raveena made a point of incorporating Indian instruments in her arrangements, a choice that’s most potent on “Asha’s Kiss,” featuring the legendary singer Asha Puthli. The pair duet over electric sitar, chiming bells, and a gently pattering drum, and the meeting of two generations forms a lovely centerpiece. Over six minutes, the song grows light and diffuse, as though Raveena and Puthli are both basking in its hazy warmth. The mood is further sustained on “Time Flies,” where Rostam provides a languid, sublime backdrop for Raveena’s bittersweet sendoff to her twenties. “Knowing I’m growing even if I’m falling apart,” she sings in a whisper over light-handed tabla and strummed guitar; “Knowing I’m okay even if I gotta restart.” The affirmation is earnest, but it isn’t cloying; through Raveena’s tender delivery, it’s illuminating, capturing an artist whose confessional instincts find harmony with her artistic ambitions.
