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SASAMI

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Sasami Ashworth, the classically trained horn player and former Cherry Glazerr synth player, who followed hushed indie rock with an album of nu-metal heaviness and then a turn to widescreen pop.

Sasami Ashworth was born in Bronxville, New York, into a Zainichi family; her father is of German descent and her mother is Korean, born in Japan during the Japanese occupation of Korea. She grew up speaking Korean and Japanese and was raised in the Unification Church, which she later described as a cult. She began learning French horn in middle school and attended the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts alongside members of Haim.

After graduating from the Eastman School of Music in 2012, Ashworth scored and arranged music for films, commercials and studio albums, and worked as a music teacher in Los Angeles, where she still lives. In 2015 she joined Cherry Glazerr on synths, touring with the band for two and a half years before leaving in January 2018 to pursue her own songwriting.

Her first solo track, 'Callous', appeared on SoundCloud in April 2018 and earned a Pitchfork Best New Track nod; Domino Recording Company signed her shortly after, releasing it alongside 'Not the Time'. That year she toured with Baths, No Joy, King Tuff, Mitski, Soccer Mommy, Snail Mail and Menace Beach, before releasing her self-titled debut album in March 2019, a collection of quiet, fuzz-edged songs built around her own guitar and keyboard parts.

Squeeze, released in 2022, took a sharp turn into distortion and screamed vocals, drawing on nu-metal and hard rock alongside softer folk passages, and was named one of the year's best albums by Rolling Stone.

Her third record, Blood on the Silver Screen, released in March 2025, works in bigger pop shapes with clean production. Ashworth also arranges and produces for other artists, and between 2023 and 2024 toured as guitarist in ambient pop artist Yeule's backing band. She identifies as queer.

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