Following her eponymous debut album in 2019, Sasami Ashworth buttresses her reputation as one of music’s most talented polymaths with sophomore effort ‘Squeeze’. Featuring the wonderful single ‘Sorry Entertainer’, it takes in nu-metal, country, pop and folk and injects them with almost classical qualities.
Sasami Ashworth, aka SASAMI. On her sophomore LP “Squeeze“, the 31-year-old Los Angeles musician emulates her idols, mostly ditching the yearning shoegaze and dream-pop of her self-titled 2019 debut for metal, industrial and grunge. Through these newly loud and aggressive sounds.
Few albums this year had a bite as sharp as “Squeeze“, a thrashing, scowling project brilliantly executed after the classically trained artist and former Cherry Glazerr member Sasami decided to mess with stark metal sounds. The idea, she has said, was to barge into music too often thought of as the domain of white dudes: “The more I feel I’m made to be small, I just turn the amp up and my voice gets more aggressive.” But Sasami’s take is entirely her own thing. She’s singing or snarling, depending on the song, loading up tracks like the jagged opener “Skin a Rat” with so much chaotic, combustible energy, they throb long after they’ve ended.
Ashworth has also played synth in Cherry Glazerr and, in a couple of TV appearances she forges a space in which one can combine their own rage with hers and feel newly liberated through group catharsis, without inflicting any real-world violence. The maelstrom of distorted guitars and pounding percussion results in her best songs yet.
SASAMI – “Say It” from the forthcoming album ‘Squeeze’ out 25th February 2022 on Domino Record Co.
The Fat Angel Sings 