Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter SASAMI has been making music in almost every capacity possible for the last decade. She's played french horn in orchestras, worked as a music teacher, and for the last two years she toured with Cherry Glazerr. All those years racked up some impressive achievements: a Mitski co-sign, and appearances on bills alongside Japanese Breakfast, Liz Phair, The Breeders and more.
Now, she's signed to Domino Records and she's finally releasing some of her own material, and what fully-formed, heart-striking gems these songs are. "Not The Time," her second-ever single debuting on The FADER today, is a break-up song that hinges on the hope of future reconnection. "One of these nights, I'm gonna feel your arms again," she sings with wavering conviction. I'm convinced she stole it from my head.
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Some other little things that make the song great: the way the guitar kicks in a millisecond later than you'd expect before the second verse; and the way her voice cracks in the last few seconds.
"'Not the Time' and 'Callous' are basically entries in the diary that is my first record of songs," she writes via email. "Maybe it's a mix of a diary and a collection of letters, written but never sent, to people I've been intimately involved with in one way or another. Ok, maybe they're more like over-dramatic drafts of texts that you compose in the Notes section of your iPhone, but either way they come from a place of getting something off my chest. I wrote both of these songs on tour on a guitar on my iPad with GarageBand plugins and Moog 15 app sounds and then re-recorded them in the studio onto tape with really great tones. So it's kind of like emotionally scribbling a letter on a tear and snot-stained napkin and then re-writing it on fancy papyrus paper to make it look like you have your shit together."
Upcoming tour dates:
10/9 - Denver, CO @ Globe Hall ^
10/10 - Ft. Collins, CO @ Downtown Artery ^
10/11 - Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court ^
10/12 - Reno, NV @ Holland Project ^
10/16 - Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom ^
10/31 - Paris, FR @ Pitchfork Paris Avant-Garde
11/1 - London, UK @ The Shacklewell Arms
11/2 - Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club !
11/3 - Bristol, UK @ Rough Trade Bristol
11/5 - Cologne, DE @ Luxor ~
11/6 - Hamburg, DE @ Molotow ~
11/7 - Berlin, DE @ Badehaus Szimpla ~
11/8 - Utrecht, NE @ Le Guess Who
11/10 - Kortrijk, BE @ Sonic City Festival
11/30 - Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel *
12/1 - Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel *
12/2 - Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel *
^ with Soccer Mommy
! with Menace Beach
~ with Snail Mail
* with Mitski
Thumbnail credit to Alice Baxley
