Apple Music Home Session: Rachel Chinouriri

Apple Music Home Session: Rachel Chinouriri

Though Rachel Chinouriri’s Apple Music Home Session arrived close behind her stunning, emotionally expressive third EP, Better Off Without—a soul-baring dissection of heartbreak—surprisingly, the Londoner often fails to find the right words. “I struggle with saying how I feel sometimes,” she tells Apple Music. “So, making a stripped version of my song and being able to expose the harmonies definitely helped. Back when I wrote the song, I wanted harmonies as the main emotion to represent how I feel.” Swapping out the driving backbeat of her original for delicate acoustic chords, Chinouriri riffs on the pains of heartache. And to complete the set, the singer-songwriter transforms a slice of anthemic alt-pop. “It’s such a feel-good song,” she says of WILLOW’s 2015 single “Wait a Minute!” “I remember seeing her ‘Whip My Hair’ era [five years prior] as a kid, but I was captivated when I saw how much she fought to not make that sort of music. I can’t imagine the pressure she must’ve felt back then. I’ve always held that courage highly, and her music is truly immaculate.”