If there’s one person who looms large over Rina Sawayama’s debut, it’s Britney Spears. The slightly nasal tones and aggressively synthetic production that characterised the pop star’s early career serve as a sonic moodboard for this mini-album, which also takes in R&B slink as well as the 90s penchant for a lo-fi phonecall sample. Opener Ordinary Superstar sees Britney meet Hannah Montana in the guise of a peppy paean to relatability, while Tunnel Vision enlists Shamir for a mournful slow jam about social media-based dejection. It can feel nostalgic at times – Sawayama is 27, this kind of super-slick factory pop would have presumably soundtracked her childhood – but on the record’s highlight, Alterlife, she manages to alchemise these influences into something bracing and modern. Recalling Grimes’s sensational 2015 album Art Angels, Alterlife starts by sounding like a spaceship taking off, before crashing down into a double-speed power ballad, replete with twinkling synths and an industrial guitar riff. Sawayama might be keen to pay tribute, but she’s proven she can shepherd pop into the future, too.