Girl to Know: Sasami
photo credit: Riley Blakeway
Sasami Ashworth, better known as Sasami, is a Los Angeles native with a background in film and commercial scores and was even as a music teacher before joining the Cherry Glazerr band in 2015. It wasn’t until 2018 that she departed the band to start her solo career.
Lo-fi sounds in darling melody beats and strums is how to best describe Sasami’s work. Some would refer to her 2019 debut album Sasami as a collection of sad girl songs.
“It’s a mix of a diary and a collection of letters, written but never sent, to people I’ve been intimately involved with in one way or another.”
photo credit: Alice Baxley
If you dive into the lyrics, the complexities of emotions are there in shoegaze fashion.
“Ok, maybe they’re more like over-dramatic drafts of texts that you compose in the Notes section of your iPhone, but either way, they come from a place of getting something off my chest.”
In “Free”, which features Devendra Barnhart, there is a point where the melody derails into a chaotic garage rock moment, then reverts back to its languid tambourine lullaby. (scroll down for video)
Originally started out as a string of demos she recorded straight to her iPad while on tour with Cherry Glazerr, and what was a stream of consciousness had culminated into a collection of ten songs.
Her years studying music theory and classical performance shine through in the tiny details that pepper SASAMI at every turn—from the sly bending of a guitar note on opener “I Was a Window,” to the expressive pause before the instrumental breakdown on “Pacify My Heart.”
In SASAMI, the singer/songwriter/musician tells her own story of how relationships with friends, lovers and herself changed within the span of a year.
