Sasami (album)

On April 3, 2018, Sasami shared her first solo track "Callous" on SoundCloud.[7] On October 9, Domino Recording Company announced that Sasami had signed to their label, and officially released "Callous" alongside a new song titled "Not the Time", premiered by The Fader.[8] The songs were released on a 7" vinyl on October 26.[9] On January 9, Sasami released the third single, "Jealousy", and its music video, alongside an announcement of the album and a pre-order.[10][11][12] A fourth single, "Free" featuring Devendra Banhart, was released on February 14,[13] before the album was released on March 8 on Domino.[14][15]

Sasami wrote the album while playing keyboards and guitar on tour with Cherry Glazerr, and shortly recorded it as a string of demos to her iPad.[16] They were later recorded for the album in Studio 22, Los Angeles with Thomas Dolas and her brother JooJoo Ashworth.[17][18] After the release of the first two singles, "Not the Time" and "Callous", Sasami stated, "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."[8]

Sasami describes the album as "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."[16]