Sasami's musical journey, from classical to metal to pop

Sasami / Courtesy of Andrew Thomas Huang

Critically acclaimed Asian American musician Sasami's musical journey has been defined by dramatic shifts in style. Each album marks a distinct departure from the last — a creative restlessness that stems from her classical training and touring experiences.

"I was a good Korean girl and took piano lessons from a really young age, then studied classical music through conservatory and classical French horn," Sasami told The Korea Times. "Classical music is my first language, and everything else is a departure from there."

This classical foundation instilled in her an appreciation for musical dynamics and drama. "If you think pop music is scandalous, you should read the libretto of any 18th-century opera where someone is having sex with their enemy's daughter and cheating on their wife and killing their best friend," she said. "The original melodramatic music is classical music."

Her artistic evolution has been largely shaped by her experiences on the road. After touring her more introspective debut album, she grew frustrated with constantly being told her voice was too quiet and her guitar too loud.

"That just made me want to turn my amp up even louder," she said. "By the end of touring that album, I had this desire to make heavier, more aggressive music."

This frustration led to "Squeeze," her second album, which drew heavily from new metal. But the physical demands of performing such aggressive music every night — "screaming on stage, carrying giant Marshall stack amps, head-butting my bandmates" — pushed her in yet another direction for her latest work.

"It kind of thrashed me in a way that made me realize that for this next album, I really wanted to focus on my voice as an instrument and songwriting as a craft," she said. "Every era leads into the next for me. And because I'm a solo artist, I can follow my creative winds wherever they go."

Sasami dismisses the notion that genres should define an artist or their audience. "The genres are just human-made, completely arbitrary titles for sounds that make us feel a certain way," she said.

"We go through phases. I go through phases where I'm really into listening to Alicia Keys and Kelly Clarkson. And then I'll go through phases where I'm like, 'this is actually unlistenable.' And it'll be the same thing with metal. Why wouldn't you be interested in different musical genres? It's like saying 'I only eat Italian food' — it doesn't make sense."

This attitude extends to her approach to pop music, a genre often dismissed by certain music communities. For Sasami, pop represents a different kind of challenge — one centered on craft and relatability.

"What makes pop music 'pop' is that it's relatable and catchy and invites the listener in, whereas some music is less inviting and it's more just like it's being made and performed at you," she said. "The unifying thing of pop music is that it's really intended to be collaborative — songs people can sing at home in the shower or get stuck in their head."

When pushed on how she'd respond to those dismissive of pop music, Sasami said: "A lot of us come up in these counterculture scenes, like indie rock or emo or punk, largely because you don't feel very reflected or seen in mainstream status quo pop culture. I was definitely a person like that. I was much more interested in My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive and Elliott Smith and much darker music."

Sasami / Courtesy of Andrew Thomas Huang

Her latest album explores a unique concept — an "alien protagonist sent to Earth to track, trace, capture and kill its nemesis, the personification of love." Each song represents love shape-shifting into different forms of human relationships.

"You're like flipping channels — every song is like watching a modern thriller. The next channel is a comedy drama from the 1990s. The next song is a black-and-white romance film," she said.

Religious imagery appears throughout, including what Sasami playfully describes as "Christian fan fiction" in her revisionist take on the story of Eve in the song "Banish From Eden."

"That song to me is kind of my revisionist history of the story of Eve. Instead of being this marred character that destroyed the hope for all goodness of humankind, she's actually just this moody teenager rejecting her family shaming her for having sex with her boyfriend," she said. "She's smoking a cig and stealing her dad's car and driving down the highway to meet her crush."

She added with a laugh, "If you could describe this album in one phrase, you would call it shitty pop Christian fan fiction by an Asian nerd."

Sasami / Courtesy of Andrew Thomas Huang

Now in her 30s, Sasami reflects on how age has influenced her artistic choices. "So much of your 20s is just shaking off everything you've been forced to believe from childhood," she said. "Once you hit your 30s, you get a better picture of what you actually like and what your desires are."

As a woman of color in the music industry, Sasami has felt pressure to continuously prove herself. "There is this extra feeling of needing to prove yourself or needing to invent something... needing to justify your presence," she said.

"In the American cultural zeitgeist, an Asian woman has not really been a main character in much of the art and storytelling. I think there is this feeling of, if you are going to be the minority, you better be really, really good. Otherwise, what are you doing? You have to justify your presence."

This pressure influenced her approach to her latest album. "I just really wanted to have fun and not be so self-critical on this album. I definitely was letting my guard down and doing things that maybe in the past I would have been more judgmental about," she said.

With her upcoming shows in Seoul and Busan, Sasami is excited to connect with her roots and the local music scene. Her Korean heritage is an important part of her identity — she attended Korean school growing up and can read and speak some basic Korean.

"I can read all Korean, and I can speak kind of some basic Korean, for sure," she said. "I know all the things that mean I'm in trouble with my mom, for sure."

Sasami / Courtesy of Crystalline Structures Studio

She already has friends in the Korean music community, including the artist So!YoOn!, and hopes to collaborate with local talent. "I'm excited to play some of the new songs, but also songs from the old records that have never been played in Korea before," she said. "I'm hoping to do some collaboration with Korean artists in the near future."

For Korean fans anxiously awaiting her performances, Sasami's boundary-pushing music promises to deliver an experience as dynamic and dramatic as her classical inspirations.

Sasami will perform in Seoul on Friday, and in Busan on Saturday. Tickets are available via Interpark. Visit sasamiashworth.com or follow @sasamiashworth on Instagram for more information, and visit sasami.bandcamp.com to hear her music.

Jamie Finn is chief editor of Debaser Magazine.