Somewhere between Albany and Boston, on a rare day off from her current tour, SASAMI checks in from a van rolling through the Massachusetts countryside. “We’re probably close to halfway through,” she says. “So we’re enjoying a recharge before the Boston, Montreal, Toronto back-to-back marathon.”
She’s heading to Montreal’s Le Ritz PDB on Friday, May 9, for a show that promises to blur boundaries—just as her new record, Blood On the Silver Screen, does so unapologetically. And if you’ve followed her shape-shifting path from classical conservatory training to shoegaze-inspired experimentation, metallic riffs and now full-blown cinematic pop, you know she’s never one to stay in one lane.
“I grew up with a Western American dad from L.A. and a Korean mom who was born and raised in Japan during the Japanese occupation of Korea,” SASAMI says. “Her musical influences were very Japanese and Korean folk music, whereas my dad was always playing Steely Dan, the Beatles, Fleetwood Mac. So I kind of grew up around both of those musics.”
Layer that with classical piano from a young age, French horn in symphonies, jazz band gigs, and punk shows downtown L.A., and it becomes clear that SASAMI’s sound isn’t the result of genre-hopping; it’s the inevitable outcome of a life lived across musical cultures.
“I also grew up in a church where music was a big part of the program,” she says. “We sang a lot of Beatles songs—‘Eight Days a Week’—but instead of ‘babe,’ you said ‘Lord.’ There was a lot of singing, Korean folk songs, American folk songs. Music was always around me in every way.”
Her journey from interpreter to creator began with a classroom revelation. “When you’re a classical musician, you’re never trained to improvise. It’s like only knowing how to read sentences but never knowing how to speak your own thoughts,” she explains. “At Eastman [School of Music], I had to take a Jazz 101 improv class. We literally just took the notes of ‘Hot Cross Buns’ and rearranged them, and it kind of blew my mind.”
That small act of improvisation cracked open a creative door. “It was scary because you’re so used to having the life raft of written music. But the more I got into it, the more I felt like there was an itch I didn’t even know I had that was being scratched.”
From there, she moved into arranging, composing, and eventually songwriting—though it took time. “I was 27 before I really felt comfortable putting words to my music. I got really inspired by Stereolab and Broadcast and a lot of shoegaze. There’s a way to combine my interest in production and composition and also lyricism.”
Her analytical musical brain wouldn’t let her just write by instinct. “One of the most instrumental things in learning how to write is just covering other people’s music. My background is in composition and classical music, so I’d decode the theory even if the original artist didn’t know it themselves. I naturally started to understand the language and vernacular of rock and folk music. My north stars were always Elliott Smith and the Beatles—music that’s relatable but still full of interesting composition.”
Still, it was a practical love for production that fuelled her first record.
“I always had these ideas like, ‘Oh, it’d be cool to put the drums through a Space Echo,’ or ‘What if I side-chain the vocals to the tambourine?’ So I just saved up and paid to go into the studio whenever I could. Eventually, I had enough songs to pitch as an album.”
Her brother Joo Joo and his studio partner Thomas Dolas helped shape that debut. “They really believed in me early on. They were like, ‘These are real songs.’”
Once she uploaded a track to SoundCloud, things shifted.
“I put one song out and it got on Pitchfork as a Best New Track, and that just opened all the doors. I only made the first record because I wanted to, not because I owed anybody. It was just random chance. That’s the thing about music, it’s not always about being the most interesting or best musician. It’s about having the desire to create and the stars aligning.”
Her new album, Blood On the Silver Screen, is a far cry from her early work in terms of polish and scale, but the process, she says, was just as organic—and deeply personal.
“I make music from a very selfish place. It’s definitely a risk to change sound and genre every album. But I started my career later. When I signed to Domino, I was already 30. I thought, ‘I might as well just do whatever I want.’ I wasn’t an 18-year-old trying to become a rock star.”
She adds, “I kind of just follow whatever the music muses are hungry for, for better or for worse.”
That hunger has taken her through radically different sonic eras—from the heavy sounds of Squeeze to the gleaming, high-drama pop of Blood On the Silver Screen.
“When I made this album, I wanted to make music that was upbeat and danceable, but still rooted in songwriting,” she says. “Every song can technically be performed just on an acoustic guitar and vocals.”
That foundation gives her freedom on stage. “I’m less obsessed with the exact arrangement and more focused on the visual experience and how it tells a story. Lighting has been really important. My lighting director Julia works so hard to make the show as cinematic as possible.”
Still, SASAMI doesn’t see her albums as monuments.
“I don’t think about albums as things. To me, the record is a record of a time that I learned a lot of stuff.” It’s not so much an archival document. More of a snapshot.”
When asked what goes through her mind walking onstage, SASAMI describes something more meditative than electric.
“I’m really protective over my ears. I have custom-moulded in-ears that block out almost everything. So even if there’s a crowd of thousands, I don’t hear it. I’m in this liminal performance space in my head.”
That inward focus, she says, is key. “It’s amazing to get energy from the crowd, but if you rely on that too much, it can be a slippery slope. You can’t control a crowd. You have to have an internal inspiration.”
As for the audience showing up to her current tour?
“It’s been fun connecting with a new crowd. This album is definitely for the girls and the gays. There’s a pop element to this one that maybe didn’t connect with everyone before. But now they’re coming to dance.”
When asked which two songs newcomers should start with, she pauses.
“A lot of people connect with ‘Call Me Home’ from my last record. It blends folk with electronic, kind of cinematic energy. I’m really proud of that one. And from the new record, I’d say ‘Honeycrash.’ That’s another one I really love.”
Both tracks hint at the tension SASAMI thrives on—between tenderness and theatricality, compositional complexity and raw emotion.
“I wanted to go all out with this album,” she says. “To, in my tenderness and emotionality, have the bravery to undertake something as epic as making a pop record about love. I hope it makes people feel empowered and embodied, too. It’s important not to box yourself in.”
She means it. Whether she’s quietly decoding chord progressions in a church choir or blasting vocals through a tambourine-side-chained compressor in a downtown studio, SASAMI’s work is built on contradiction, curiosity, and complete creative freedom.
As she heads to Montreal this week, that’s what she’s bringing to the stage: not just songs, but snapshots of a life lived in sound, bold, unpredictable, and deeply felt.
SASAMI PLAYS BAR LE RITZ ON MAY 9
Share this :
