Sasami and Clairo Are 'In Love With a Memory'

Sasami and Clairo Are 'In Love With a Memory'

Jan 28, 2025

There’s pop music and then there’s pop as imagined by Sasami. The classically trained French horn player, producer, composer and artist has spent her career reimagining genres through her singular POV. Her last record, 2022’s Squeeze, found her performing wild feats of heavy metal thrashing on songs with the scale of a symphony. On her forthcoming record, Blood On The Silver Screen, Sasami shifts her gaze towards pop music, taking on the genre’s relative simplicity as a thrilling challenge. “The job of a good pop song is to create a dynamic narrative over a foundation of familiarity,” Sasami tells PAPER. “Pop is complex... she really has layers.”

“Simplicity” doesn’t equate to dullness, though — especially when Sasami is deploying her studious approach. “This was the first record for me where the songwriting was much more considered than the production,” she shares. “I have been a self-proclaimed ‘analog whore’ in the past, but on this album I really went for feelings and relatability over preciousness of process and everything was recorded digitally.” The production's relative immediacy means her words sit front and center.

Her words hit with a special bloody brilliance on “In Love WIth a Memory” (feat Clairo), which is out today, alongside a video directed by Jay Suwen. The Rostam-produced song glimmers like the desert sun, bright and moody and bedazzled with synth scales and acoustic guitar licks. “All good things must come to an end/ Don’t cry just came back to bed,” Sasami sings on the chorus with a cool sadness. At one point she delivers a Johann Sebastian Bach-like guitar solo over a bed of soft vocals from the one and only Clairo. “Rostam really challenged me to incorporate elements of my classical chops — like the neoclassical electric guitar solo — and helped me to lean into the dramatic lyrical narrative,” Sasami shares, before highlighting Clairo’s contribution to the record. “To me ‘In Love With a Memory’ has a relatable but very nostalgic timeless feel to it, so it was a dream to have Claire on the track... I am so lucky to have Claire's vocal magic interwoven with mine.”

The video — a cinematic, at times bloodied, adventure through the California desert — shows Sasami contemplating love and loss while dressed in chic Wild West garb. In the video, sun-soaked beauty sits alongside the unnerving images of bloodied teeth and branded skin. The slight horror tropes make the retro, gorgeous narrative tick with a gripping unease. “‘In Love With a Memory,’ feels like a modern western,” says Sasami. “Shooting on 16mm film is always so special, and all of the experimental Ektachrome film burning techniques Jay employed to create a feeling of memories literally being burned from your consciousness is beyond my wildest imaginations!”

PAPER chatted with the multi-faceted artist about exploring pop, her all-star collab and filming a western.

This album is an exciting turn towards pop. What was your relationship to the genre prior to making this record? What sparked your desire to dive full into this genre?

As an alt Asian band nerd growing up I wouldn't say I was raised on pop by any means, however we did grow up in a Celine Dion house, so the divadom was subliminally seeping into my brain since childhood. My mom was trained in classical singing in high school, and although she never pursued performance in any professional capacity, she always tore up the "noraebang" karaoke mic and secretly vocally shreds when she's washing dishes and thinks no one is listening. Because of that, singing ballads and pop melodies never felt like an unachievable language. The aesthetics of pop, however, feel pretty new to me. Also the songwriting side of things. This was the first album where I realized that pop songs often have the same exact chords under the verse and chorus. The job of a good pop song is to create a dynamic narrative over a foundation of familiarity. Pop is complex... she really has layers.

Who was on your pop moodboard while you were creating Blood on the Silver Screen?

I think because I am trained in composition and theory I have a crippling fear that everything I write that's "good" is plagiarized, so I try not to listen to anything too contemporary (like within 10-15 years) when I am writing, so I was listening to a lot of mid-aughts Britney, early Adele, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Mariah when I was in B.O.S.S. (Blood On the Silver Screen) writing mode. There is a very digital sounding almost, dare I say, bad or unsophisticated sound to a lot of the production from that time that I actually found very inspiring. This was the first record for me where the songwriting was much more considered than the production. I have been a self-proclaimed "analog whore" in the past, but on this album I really went for feelings and relatability over preciousness of process and everything was recorded digitally.

"In Love With A Memory" joins the creative forces of you, Rostam and Clairo. Tell me a bit about the process of creating this record and how the three of you came together?

"In Love With A Memory" was actually the first song I wrote forBlood On the Silver Screen. All of the songs on the record were written prior to going into the studio with the producers I worked with, but this song was the most re-constructed in the studio. Rostam really challenged me to incorporate elements of my classical chops — like the neoclassical electric guitar solo — and helped me to lean into the dramatic lyrical narrative. This album was really inspired by expressions of a love so great that you would perish or suffer for it and Rostam did not let me phone in a single line ("even if we die ... that's all right") which I appreciate. He incorporated a lot of acoustic and electric guitars that played into the Western feel of the song and album world, which we reflected in the music video. Claire has been a longtime friend and inspiration to me. To me ILWAM has a relatable but very nostalgic and timeless feel to it, so it was a dream to have Claire on the track. She is sexy, timeless, class personified. This is one of the more melismatic songs on the album and I am so lucky to have Claire's vocal magic interwoven with mine.

The video is a bloody, beautiful Western epic. What inspired this video's visual world?

When I built the visual world of Blood On the Silver Screen with Andrew Thomas Huang — the director of the first single “Honeycrash“ music video and the photographer the album cover — we conjured a sci-fi, desert landscape with denim-clad Thelma and Louise coded, classic car whipping, dust stirring, vengeance-seeking but love-yearning femme energy. I was so thrilled that Jay Swuen, who also DP’d the “Honeycrash” video, was down to delve into creating a visual tale to accompany “In Love With A Memory.” I knew I wanted to make something in the scene of the world that Andrew and I envisioned. To me every song on the album lives in its own filmic genre and "In Love With A Memory" feels like a modern western. Shooting on 16mm film is always so special, and all of the experimental Ektachrome film burning techniques Jay employed to create a feeling of memories literally being burned from your consciousness is beyond my wildest imaginations.