Rachael Sage has never been an artist who looks away. With ‘Nexus (Acoustic)’, a newly reimagined, stripped-back version of the track from her critically acclaimed album Canopy, she looks directly at grief, at identity, at the violence that still greets difference in too many places, and she refuses to blink.
Written in response to the death of Nex Benedict, the nonbinary student beaten by school peers, the song channels mourning into something collective and, ultimately, defiant. The acoustic arrangement, sparser than the original and closer to the bone, only sharpens that intent. There is nowhere for the emotion to hide, and Sage doesn’t ask it to.
The accompanying music video, directed by award-winning documentary filmmaker Nick Clark, matches the song’s quiet power frame for frame. What begins in stillness, candles, a curtained stage, and the first tentative notes becomes something altogether more expansive. Clark’s direction is patient and precise, allowing the transformation at the video’s heart to unfold at its own pace. By the time it reaches its closing image, it has earned every feeling it asks of you.
Sage, who donated all proceeds from the original Nexus release to The Trevor Project, has also recently become the first official ambassador for Rainbow Mind, the UK’s community-led LGBTQIA+ mental health charity, and has launched a limited-edition merchandise collection to raise funds for the organisation as part of her Take In The Good campaign.
All of it, the song, the video, the advocacy, feels of a piece. This is an artist for whom the work and the values are inseparable. ‘Nexus (Acoustic)’ is taken from Under My Canopy, Sage’s forthcoming acoustic album due later this year on MPress/Universal. Watch here: https://youtu.be/Solvt_retxo