Sasha Siem is a British-Norwegian singer-songwriter, composer, poet and teacher based in London. Her new album EAR.th is out now.
Since writing her first song aged 11, music has been her medicine. Over the course of her career Sasha has been increasingly interested in the medicinal power of sound, which mystics have written about for millennia and which science now corroborates.
Thanks to her extensive research into the science and metaphysics of sound, Sasha advocates the power of song to heal and harmonise individuals, communities and even our planet - transforming them ‘from harm to harmony’. At the core of her practise is a devotion to the ideal of World Peace (or the Kabbalistic notion of Tikkun Olam) - in which she believes Song plays a key role.
She is dedicated to writing songs that reconnect us with out soul and the sacredness of life.
"I’m dyslexic and growing up, it sometimes took me time to translate my feelings and experiences into language. Expressing myself effectively when something meant a great deal to me was hard. Someone would ask me a question and I would go blank. I would literally choke up.
Then I found song. I set poem by Maya Angelou – ‘The Caged Bird’ – to music. Writing that first song set something free within me. It expressed something I couldn’t convey in any other way. It gave me wings.
Music has been my medicine ever since. Music has changed me. And it continues to do so.
Through song I discovered a language of enchantment that can transmute sorrow into joy, despair into hope, and depression into dance. Alchemy happens with music. Gateways open for us to transcend our limitations and experience life “in tune” with ourselves.
Music changes us. I believe in its power to ‘change the world’ also: into a world where all beings live in harmony with themselves and others - while still following the unique beat of their own hearts.”
Sasha Siem
Sasha studied music at Cambridge University and received a PhD in music and poetry from Harvard University (where she studied with the likes of Jorie Graham, Anne Carson, Jen Bervin). She was also an exchange fellow at Columbia University and worked with mentors such as Tristan Murail, Julian Anderson, Helmut Lachenmann, Oliver Knussen, Jonathan Harvey, and Robin Holloway. By her early twenties, she had written music for the London Symphony Orchestra, The Royal Opera House, Rambert Dance Company, and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Sasha also became one of the youngest people to win a British Composer Award and has since been awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize and the New Wave Artist award at the Fashion Media Awards in New York alongside Kate Moss and Edward Enninful.
During a residency in Berlin (around the corner from where David Bowie spent his formative Berlin years), Sasha began revisiting the songwriting of her youth (inspired by the French Chanson of Jacques Brel, Francois Hardy and other early influences such as Leonard Cohen, James Taylor, Carole King, Kate Bush). After years of obedience to her rigorous Classical training which required consistent virtuosic perfection, she delighted in collaborations within the Berlin Techno Scene and weekends spent at flea markets collecting strange instruments she didn’t know how to play.
Self-directed experiments let to her transition into ‘alt-pop’ which was was ignited with the release of her first highly-acclaimed experimental album ‘Most of the Boys’ (2015). Conceived during her collaborations in New York City with The Mivos Quartet, I.C.E. and producer David Kahne (Lana Del Rey, Regina Spector) the album was recorded with Sigurðsson (Björk, Feist, Sigur Rós, Ben Frost) at the Greenhouse Studios in Reykjavik, Iceland, and finally premiered as a staged ‘opera'at the Royal Opera House in London.
The album is a collection of ‘cautionary tales’ and has been described as a ‘brazen take on the tensions, sharp contrasts and dichotomies that young women have to navigate in 21st century society (personal and public selves, acting mannerly and offering honesty, showing confidence while nursing wounds)’ (Stereogum). It was released to critical acclaim by the likes of Noisey, Q magazine, Mojo, NME, Billboard, The Fader Wonderland, Marie Claire and also received support at Radio 6, Xfm and Absolute Radio.
“Sasha’s unmistakable vocals - fragile, knowing and fierce all at once - weave hypnotically catchy melodies that entrance and enchant her listener into an intimate and yet epic place - unlocking deep private moments of divine aliveness.”
Wonderland Magazine
Her third album, 'wHOLeY’, (2020) was recorded following the birth of her son Dylan in Brooklyn with producers Philipp Schardt and Danton Supple (Coldplay, Star Sailor, Elbow). An empowering exploration of trauma, the album takes inspiration from her own healing journey and is a heroic reminder that we are all whole no matter what we’ve been through. Sasha has said of writing the album “I think we need songwriters to express all the things that we would usually keep hidden away in the dark - the things we’re too ashamed to discuss. Song has always been my safe space to do that. The songs have been a kind of therapy.”
Thanks to her research into the medicinal power of music to clear personal, ancestral and collective trauma (enriched by the work of Thomas Hübl, Gabor Mate, Jill Purce, and the PolyVagal Theory of Stephen Porges) the songs are recorded at 432Hz, and uses healing frequencies to assist with bringing the body and mind back into a state of homeostasis. The album provides the listener with a roadmap to recovery: from perceived brokenness - to wholeness - to holiness and the awareness of the divinity eternally present in all things. The album was premiered as a choreographed ‘healing experience’ by the late Yaara Dolev at Sadler’s Wells, London.
Since then, Sasha has released four further albums. Line of Best Fit wrote her second album Bird Burning (2016): “(this) is a spectacular record on several levels, successfully tackling concepts other artists would rightly shy from.” The album was written following a pilgrimage to the North of Norway where her father’s family originate from. There she met renowned musician and Sami Shaman Mari Boine and spent time living on the earth, learning about ‘joiking’ - the almost magical technique of invoking people, places, dreams into being through song.
The album invokes the spirit of 5 birds traditionally used by Medieval alchemists to symbolise a soul’s journey through life (birth - death - rebirth). Sasha has mapped these onto a song-cycle which narrates the evolution of an intense love affair (from the spark of attraction to final combustion, leaving only the ash of memory). The album was presented on a 30-date sold-out tour of the UK.
“Sasha Siem possesses a unique musical identity that is melodious and adept. She makes pocket symphonies of great observation and discovery, a cohesive, powerful story.”
The Quietus
“A Dose of Heaven - gentle reaching towards a sublime sense of euphoria - Sasha continually twisting her creativity in fresh directions. Blissful.”
Clash Magazine
“A kind of catharsis that reminds us that we’re all in this together.”
The Sun
Sasha’s fourth album L.OVER (2022) recorded in London with Julian Emery (Nothing But Thieves, Lissie, Gabrielle Aplin) is an intimate collection of love songs: “to capture the dream state that occurs between a love affair ending and another one beginning. The overlapping of sweet erotic new love with the whispering shadows of ones that have come before. Is a love affair over once it’s over? Or does a lover love on within us in a sort of Quantum continuity?”
“Gorgeous and emotive work, with lyrics that allow for self-reflection.”
The 405
“Seriously Catchy Tunes”
NME
Her most recent album EAR.th is a love-song to our planet. The album is the result of research into the Earth’s song lines and time spent with Indigenous Elders and Wisdom Keepers as well as in direct communion with nature. The songs call for us to open our ears and listen to the messages of our planet at a time when greater care and sustainability are called for. The so-called ‘Schumann Frequency’ (the 'sound' of the earth) runs subliminally throughout the album and recordings of our planet as heard from space - gathered by NASA - have been used to built the instruments from which the album’s unique sound-world has been built. The album offers us the opportunity to immerse ourselves in (‘come home to’) the earth’s frequencies and harmonise with our planet for greater wellbeing.
“Different is right. Unique might be even better. And this is just the tip of a very large iceberg that is Sasha Siem, a phenomenon that’s exactly right for our times.”
Clash Magazine
