Sasami is making heavy metal that you can to meditate to
[Dazed]
The LA-based artist talks to Dazed about growing up in a cult, Carly Rae Jepsen, and her aspiration to one day make ‘swoooosh plinky pop’
Text Halima Jibril
I was meant to see Sasami live in 2022 when she opened for Mitski at her Laurel Hell Tour at the Roundhouse in London. An hour late for the show, my partner and I raced to the venue, but by the time we arrived, Sasami had left the stage. I hadn’t checked who was opening beforehand, so Sasami’s existence was unknown to me then. However, upon our return home and after being mentally and physically transformed by Mitski’s raw vulnerability, we decided to listen to Sasami’s music to see what we’d missed. From the second we heard her sing, we realised that missing her performance would become one of the biggest regrets.
Am I being dramatic? Maybe a bit. But when you first listen to Sasami’s music, it grips you. The genre-bending musician fuses ballads, heavy metal and industrial sounds to create music dripping with emotion. While Sasami’s music mostly sits in the heavy metal category, her vocals are almost always soft, even when the music behind her is instrumentally rageful and demanding. Her first solo track, “Callous”, released in 2018, is a prime example of this. While she sings about changing herself for a lover – “I let you in, and I made myself small / Even though I smile through it all / When I look back I can see myself slipping down” – her voice is slightly above a whisper. “Callous” is filled with a quiet rage; you’re left wondering why she doesn’t let it out vocally. But that juxtaposition creates an energetic tension that leaves you wanting more. Sasami, as Rolling Stone described in their 2022 interview, makes heavy metal for soft souls.
After sharing “Callous” on SoundCloud, Sasami signed with Domino Recording Company. Her subsequent single, “Not the Time,” catapulted her into the spotlight, with The Fader dubbing her “Rock’s next big thing”. Since then, Sasami has released two critically acclaimed albums, Sasami (2019) and Squeeze (2022), and has toured with several influential, experimental, and alternative rock musicians, including Soccer Mommy, Snail Mail, Haim, Yeule, and Mitski.
Her latest single, “Honeycrash”, is the musician’s first release since Squeeze. It is quintessentially Sasami-ian, with the beat being loud and aggressive while her vocals remain calm and steady. “Honeycrash” is an attempt to “write a song with all the drama of a 19th-century classical opera, but with the patience and understanding of someone in therapy in 2024,” she explains in a statement following the single’s release.
Following the release of “Honeycrash”, we spoke to the 33-year-old musician about her music, growing up in a Christian cult and her obsession with the mystical whispers of fungal networks.
How would you describe your music?
Sasami: I would describe my music as a soundtrack to a sleek and golden deer in a dewy, verdant forest who is being chased by a mountain lion. The camera is in slow motion and zooms in on the deer’s face, and you can tell that even in the throws of certain death, they are thinking about their unrequited deer lover not texting them back.
How would you describe it to someone who’s not come across your music?
Sasami: My music has been described on X as ‘music for people who love System of a Down AND Carly Rae Jepsen’.
What are your earliest memories of music?
Sasami: I grew up in a cult, so a lot of my earliest music memories are of being in church singing along to religiously edited versions of popular songs like this edit of “Eight Days A Week” by the Beatles:
“Love you ev’ry day, LORD /
Always on my mind.
One thing I can say, LORD /
Love you all the time.
Hold me, love me, hold me, love me.
Ain’t got nothin’ but love LORD /
Eight days a week.”
And lots of dad rock. But also Korean folk ballads.
What’s your star sign, and are you a typical one of that star sign?
Sasami: I’m such a cancer. I’m a big-time water baby. I can’t write music that’s not drenched in emotion, even if it bops.
What’s your weirdest internet obsession?
Sasami: TikTok/Reels of elaborate one-pot rice cooker meals.
What conspiracy theory are you quite into?
Sasami: That our gut bacteria have trained humans to be perfect little environments for them and their communities to thrive. The PR lately around gut microbiome and probiotics…? Incredible marketing for them, really.
What’s your love language?
Sasami: Sex.
What would be your ghost outfit?
Sasami: Like, what outfit will I be frozen in for the rest of eternity, like Nearly Headless Nick from Harry Potter? Probably one of the Rodarte dresses I’m wearing on tour right now.
If you could create a new micro-genre of music, what would you call it, and what would it sound like?
Sasami: The silent hum of the universe side-chained to a pulsating bass synth under the shimmering ping of blinking stars in an echo chamber galaxies deep – would be called swoooosh plinky pop.
What music are you listening to right now?
Sasami: The mystical whispers of fungal networks beneath our feet and within the fibres of plant matter.
Do you have any guilty pleasures?
Sasami: I am post-guilt. Trying to be…
Is there a particular music scene or decade that you wish you could’ve been a part of?
Sasami: A million years ago when the multinucleate mass of protoplasm within the first Calomyxa (my favourite slime mould) was forming for the first time.
What would the line-up be in your nightmare blunt rotation?
Sasami: My best friends Lætita from Vagabon, Mitski, and Patti Harrison. We are always on tour and in different cities, and I wish we could be together more.
“Honeycrash” is out now via Domino