REVIEW: Sasami Brings Blood on the Silver Screen to Albany
5/6 @ The Egg
Photos by Elissa Ebersold
“The show was quintessential Sasami—feral, intense, full of unbridled female-rage, and at the same time, sweet, heartsick and tender as a bruise.”
Last month, a friend texted a photo of a flyer to me that read: “JUST ANNOUNCED: SASAMI” and asked, “Want to go with me?” Within seconds I responded in the affirmative: “Oh hell yes.”
Early spring is making good on its usual drizzly-sad weather and by the time the show rolled around, I needed a reason to turn up on a Tuesday. The show was quintessential Sasami — feral, intense, full of unbridled female-rage, and at the same time, sweet, heartsick and tender as a bruise.
The lights dimmed down and Sasami took to the stage: hair swirling cinematically about her face and shoulders, bending backwards, and spinning like a wind-up doll. She was dressed head to toe in white and, for one or two of her songs, picked up a gleaming French horn adorned with matching white ribbons and beads. She looked like a wild faerie on her wedding day. With each note, the space swelled with majesty.
Naturally, she performed songs off her latest album, Blood On the Silver Screen, which was released in early March of this year. She also brought out a few older favorites including the ever-so-sad “Not The Time” off her 2019 self-titled album and the menacing “Need It To Work” off 2022’s Squeeze. Singing into the mic, Sasami delivered the first few lines: “Like me / do you like me / do you like me…” and then off-script, “Do you like me, Albany?” For those in attendance to this especially intimate show, it was love, not like.
After a beat, Sasami encouraged the audience to get out of their seats and let loose. Her drummer, Juan Diego Patino, amped the crowd up by unleashing an incredible force of drum solos between songs. She closed out the night with “Just Be Friends”, a song that took me by surprise with its near-pop country leanings. Yet somehow, the multitude of genres she laid out all fit together effortlessly.
Opening the night was singer and visual artist Mood Killer, who performed an absurdist, albeit entertaining, collection of EDM and hyperpop originals. Playing tracks off their latest album, ABRACADABRA, many of the songs felt as if they’d been cooked up by an evil mad scientist pop-star-gone-wild. One of the most unhinged included a track entitled “Happy Birthday” which employed kissy noises, slide whistle, and MIDI horns with Mood Killer whisper-hissing: “Your birthday got cancelled…”. I plan to play it loudly and proudly on my own birthday later in the month.
