The Purest Blue

The Purest Blue is Pauline Rana, PR, a Cancer Sun that sat herself down in pandemic isolation, alone at home for weeks taking inventory of the who-she’d-beens that had accumulated— class president, Amaj7-enjoyer, only child, elder sister, grieving daughter, Hatchie fan, babygirl, etc.

PR’s inward gaze tinted her transient solo trip in purple hue and a momentum-within-the-stillness melody that quiet side streets of Manila sang in if you knew to listen. She found herself singing along, and then singing alone, finding new songs that seemed to come from the same sacred place her old ones did, but also from right here, now.

That she did music to tell stories to herself was not a surprise to her, but what PR discovered strumming her guitar humming was a voice that was a key: she was singing to get to know who she was and where she’d been, learning to listen and give space, finding indie pop elegies to missing cats and fathers and youth.

The Purest Blue is the sound of PR self-unraveling, trusting herself more and her friends too, and learning to tell stories like she used to, while knowing like she does now, how stories go.