“Rarely do we find an Artist that Satisfies Our Appetite for Magnificent Music. Stimulating the Soul and Expanding the Boundaries of Artistry and Free Speech.”

"Sasa's music sounds somewhere between John Lennon and Tupac Shakur, with a healthy dose of Bob Marley."

The music of Sasa Hasid RA begins with the rich influence of his native islands, the Reggae & Calypso of Trinidad and the Salsa of Puerto Rico, and is activated by eclectic Jazz and psychedelic Rock.  Weaving words and sounds into musical paintings, he expresses a keen insight into the human condition, while simultaneously sparking the imagination of music lovers world-wide. Sasa Hasid RA is one of today's most enigmatic, magnetic and controversial artists.

Technological fatigue. Narcissism anxiety. A galaxy of isolation. These are the new norms keeping Weyes Blood (aka Natalie Mering) up at night and the themes at the heart of her latest release, And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow (Sub Pop Records). 

The album is her follow-up to the acclaimed Titanic Rising. (Pitchfork, NPR, The Guardian admiringly named it one of 2019’s best.)  Where Titanic was an observation of doom to come, And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow is about being in the thick of it: a search for an escape hatch to liberate us from algorithms and ideological chaos. “We’re in a fully functional shit show,” Mering says. “My heart is a glow stick that’s been cracked, lighting up my chest in an explosion of earnestness.”

And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow opens with the wistful, winsome “It's Not Just Me, It's Everybody” — about the interconnectivity of all beings, but also the fraying of society around us. “I was asking a lot of questions while writing these songs. Hyper isolation kept coming up,” Mering says. “Our culture relies less and less on people. Something is off, and even though the feeling appears differently for each individual, it is universal.”

Other tracks follow in kind. The lullaby-like “Grapevine” chronicles the splintering of a human connection. The otherworldly dirge “God Turn Me into a Flower” serves as an allegory about our collective hubris. “The Worst Is Done” is an ominous warning, set against a deceivingly breezy pop melody. 

“Chaos is natural. But so is negentropy, or the tendency for things to fall into order,” she says. “These songs may not be manifestos or solutions, but I know they shed light on the meaning of our contemporary disillusionment.”

Country Fried Heavy Metal and Finger Pickin' Good!

Johnny Lane is a singer songwriter based in Los Angeles. 

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