SASAMI’s Squeeze Is a Fascinating and Powerful Exploration of Duality
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SASAMI, our February Artist of the Month, operates best with duality. Whether it’s the careful balancing of genres in her music, her intentional separation of songwriting and production, or the juxtaposition of conflicting emotions, the singer-songwriter (born Sasami Ashworth) knows it’s more useful to examine both sides of the coin.
Across the 11 tracks of her fascinating, eclectic sophomore LP Squeeze (out Friday, February 25th), the LA-based artist frequently pits her own ideas against each other, levying chaos with assurance, unspeakable feelings with cries of catharsis.
Indeed, Squeeze is a dense, thorny album, peppered with moments of calm but consistently raging. Duality is certainly a concept that SASAMI wanted at the forefront of Squeeze: taking inspiration from a ghost in Japanese folklore called the “Nure-onna (濡女, or “wet woman”),” SASAMI portrays this deity on the album cover as a snake with the head of a woman. According to the legend, the Nure-onna would lure potential victims by giving people a small bundle that resembled a baby; if the person held the bundle, they were spared, but if they discarded it, they’d be killed.
This story of duplicitous judgment epitomizes the album: there are songs that seem to explode out of SASAMI in a nu-metal sludge, juxtaposed with the authentic, country-tinged stylings of classic rock. On some songs she sounds like Jenny Lewis, others like System of a Down, and even songs where it sounds like Jenny Lewis is the frontwoman of System of a Down. Yet, all these styles blend together in a way that is undeniably from SASAMI’s mind, never losing the dark, prismatic touch that characterized her 2019 self-titled LP.
With Squeeze, however, SASAMI intended to focus primarily on themes of “anti-toxic positivity,” and to process feelings of “anger, frustration, desperation, and more violent, aggressive emotions.” There’s a deliberate pivot to heavier styles of rock, ditching her hazy shoegaze for a more urgent and immediate sound.
That being said, SASAMI still imbues these desperate emotions with a diluted fog. “Say It” thrashes with industrial drums and chugging guitars, but throughout the chorus, SASAMI’s titular request is much softer, harmony-laden, and almost a bit resigned. It’s a fascinating combination, and the hard-edged emotions of the song become much more in focus as the chaos begins to drown out SASAMI’s vocals.
Every song on Squeeze — even the softer numbers — has the capacity to escalate to violence. “Make It Right” features a trot that calls Fleetwood Mac’s “The Ledge” to mind, but the song’s pounding drums, sudden crescendos, and unceasing riffs create a momentum and an urgency that almost contradicts her lyrics: “What can I say when there’s nothing left to say?”
The most climactic and dissonant moment of the album is on “Sorry Entertainer,” which opens like a cracked-out version of Weezer’s “Hash Pipe” and ends with a blistering, furious chorus. “I’m a loner, a sorry entertainer,” she roars. SASAMI finishes with a final cry, sounding genuinely drained, coughing on the recording and recoiling in exhaustion.
It’s seemingly the sound of years of rage bottled up and released, perhaps about the struggles and anguish that comes with a career as a professional musician (not to mention the oppression that women, queer folk, and people of color experience both in the music industry and beyond). But rather than remain defiant, you can physically hear the cost of expressing this anger, and it’s equally cathartic as it is uncomfortable. This very balance is what SASAMI looks to achieve on the heaviest songs of Squeeze, and “Sorry Entertainer” is a powerful and raw expression of this dynamic.
Elsewhere on the album, there are moments of startling tenderness: “Call Me Home” emphasizes SASAMI’s gorgeous, patient voice, matching her languid and carefully constructed melodies with thoughts on longing, separation, and desire. The cosmic shoegaze of the song’s outro feels like a logical next step from her previous efforts, and in an almost puzzling way, it flirts with the idea of descending into a hazy madness, but never commits to it.
Both “Call Me Home” and the country-esque “Tried to Understand” are rooted in acoustic guitar, and the natural feel of these songs is at odds with the industrial, metallic edge of the heavier tracks on Squeeze. However, SASAMI expresses that this lack of sonic cohesion was entirely intentional, claiming that in the age of streaming and playlists, artists should be allowed to create music from whichever genres they choose.
Not only that, SASAMI is tired of being pigeon-holed: “People were looping me in with a lot of other Asian women with no regard for our sonic differences,” she says in Consequence’s Artist of the Month interview. “Try to fucking compare me to them now.”
Indeed, Squeeze is an album like no other, and it serves as a massive statement piece from SASAMI. And at the album’s core are ideas about rage and frustration, but also about doubt: there’s a recurring theme of being speechless, at a standstill, or suspended between thoughts, moments, and ideas. SASAMI uses that suspension as a blank slate, creating 11 different versions of how to express doubt in a sonically moving and powerful way.
On “Make It Right,” SASAMI asks, “What can I say when there’s nothing left to say?/ What can I do when there’s nothing left to do to make it right?” She may be relating to the fraught dynamics of a relationship, but this question seems to drive at the heart of Squeeze: with strife and oppression still so rampant throughout the globe, what do we do with this collective anger? How do we move forward when the apparent path is so dark and costly?
SASAMI doesn’t reveal the answer, but she may be hinting at it in the album’s final track, “Not A Love Song.” “It’s not a love song,” she sings, “just a beautiful, beautiful sound.” And throughout this cinematic finale, she sounds enamored, calm and even hopeful. Perhaps the answer is around us all the time, hidden in these beautiful, beautiful sounds.
Essential Tracks: “Call Me Home,” “Say It,” “Make It Right”
Catch SASAMI on tour; tickets are available via Ticketmaster.
Squeeze Artwork:
SASAMI’s Squeeze Is a Fascinating and Powerful Exploration of Duality
Paolo Ragusa
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