SASAMI

SASAMI (Sasami Ashworth) will release her second studio album, Squeeze, on February 25, 2022 on Domino Records. Squeeze hammers home a sentiment of “anti-toxic positivity” and showcases her vicious honesty and brutally uncompromising vision, partially inspired by the Japanese yōkai folk spirit called Nure-onna (translation: wet woman), a vampiric deity that has the head of a woman and the body of a snake.

On Squeeze, SASAMI explores her wide spectrum of moods—from raging at systemic violence to wrestling for control in her personal relationships. Throughout, the singer-songwriter and producer surveys the raw aggression of nu-metal, tender plainspokeness of country-pop and folk rock, and dramatic romanticism of classical music.

Based in Los Angeles, SASAMI is a descendent of the Zainichi people on her mother’s side, a diaspora of ethnic Koreans who lived in Japan during Japan’s occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945. Though some Zainichi moved voluntarily and others were forcibly kidnapped, these people and their progeny continue to experience systemic discrimination and oppression in Japan to this day.

During a deep dive into her family’s mixed Korean and Japanese history and culture, SASAMI stumbled upon stories of Nure-onna and was immediately awe-struck by this mysterious water creature who, according to legend lures potential victims with a small bundle that looks like a baby; if a good person holds the child, she spares them, and if a bad person discards the child, she traps and then kills them. Drawn to the deity’s multiplicitous nature, SASAMI was emboldened by how Nure-onna was feminine and noble, yet powerful and vicious enough to brutally destroy victims with her blood sucking tongue.

The fluidity of the Nure-onna can be felt in how Squeeze naturally flows through musical influences — from System of a Down to Sheryl Crow and Fleetwood Mac, to even Bach and Mahler. A classically-trained composer, SASAMI constructed the LP in the form of an opera or orchestral work that has different “movements” that takes the listener on an emotional journey. The wide range of sounds mirrors the ambiguity of the record’s title. “The word ‘squeeze’ can be very endearing and gentle, like a hug, or really aggressive, like physically bruising, or it can represent desperation,” says SASAMI. Compared to the introspective indie rock of SASAMI’s 2019 self-titled debut album, Squeeze is a full-throttled expansion.

SASAMI began working on Squeeze in February 2020, after a long stretch of touring that saw her pushing her live performances to be louder and more volatile. Right before attending a songwriting retreat in Washington state, she saw the Vermont-based post-metal band Barishi play live in Los Angeles, awakening her already-seeded intention to make a heavy rock album.

While composing the nu-metal-inspired songs that would appear on Squeeze, she realized that there was a meticulousness and precision to metal that she gravitated toward as a composer with a classical background.

The dark, fantastical elements of the Nure-onna legend feeds into SASAMI’s use of heavy rock elements throughout Squeeze. She hopes that listeners will identify with this new sinister, intense sound and use it as a soundtrack for processing their “anger, frustration, desperation, and more violent, aggressive emotions.” Her ultimate desire is for marginalized folks, including femmes, BIPOC, and queer people, to listen to Squeeze and find catharsis from the oppression and violence that they experience.

In reclamatory fashion, SASAMI assumes the form of Nure-onna on the record’s Japanese horror film-inspired cover art, designed by Andrew Thomas Huang (Björk, FKA twigs) and Rin Kim. She chose to pair this Japanese folklore-referencing image with Squeeze written in Korean calligraphy by Myung-Ja Ashworth, SASAMI’s mom, as another act of Zainichi empowerment. On the back, the title is written in Japanese script.

The album was produced by SASAMI, with a handful of the tracks co-produced by Ty Segall at his studio in Topanga, California. Having to keep her circle tight due to COVID safety, SASAMI enlisted a group of close collaborators to contribute: King Tuff’s Kyle Thomas, her studio partner, helped engineer and compose, while Moaning’s Pascal Stevenson, also known as Fashion Club, added drum production to the industrial-inflected track “Say It.” Christian Lee Hutson and Hand Habit’s Meg Duffy, two local singer-songwriters who SASAMI was helping with their respective projects, added guitar and subliminally influenced SASAMI to make the project’s twangier, folkier songs.

Other notable contributors include Megadeth drummer Dirk Verbeuren, who plays on a handful of brutal tracks including standout “Skin a Rat.” It also features SASAMI’s friends Laetitia Tamko (Vagabon) and comedian Patti Harrison, whose screams are in the song’s background. Elsewhere, SASAMI enlisted London-based musician No Home to contribute a haunting verse about generational violence against women and femmes for the LP’s title track, an exploration of female body horror. Legendary jazz drummer Jay Bellerose lent his percussion talents to closing track “Not a Love Song.” Barishi also played as the backing band on Squeeze’s high-octane cover of Daniel Johnston’s “Sorry Entertainer,” a song that SASAMI chose because she related to the song’s lyrics about “tackling your demons through music.”

Ultimately, Squeeze is a collaborative effort of SASAMI’s direct community, made for a broader audience of people to access and process their anger, disillusionment, and frustration in a

healthy way. In SASAMI’s words “this is an album for bottoms to fantasize about being tops and for anyone else who needs to release some pent-up emotions.” Like Nure-onna, SASAMI seeks to assert herself and her own power in the world, while still fully standing in her principles.