{"id":350289,"date":"2025-12-15T15:24:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T15:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/350289\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T15:24:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T15:24:13","slug":"sassy-009-is-carving-out-the-experimental-pop-soundtrack-to-our-dreams-the-cover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/350289\/","title":{"rendered":"Sassy 009 is carving out the experimental pop soundtrack to our dreams | The Cover"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"NME\"<\/a>\"NME\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The world’s defining voice in music and pop culture: breaking what’s new and what’s next since 1952.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2025\u00a0NME Networks<\/a>, a part of\u00a0Caldecott Music Group<\/a>. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

Sassy 009 is carving out the experimental pop soundtrack to our dreams | The Cover | NME.com\"SassySassy 009 (2025), photo by Furmaan AhmedAs the real world becomes too dystopian to bear, the Oslo musician looks to our unconscious self for inspiration<\/p>\n

Words by\u00a0Laura Molloy<\/a><\/p>\n

15th December 2025\"SassyWeekly Poster Giveaway<\/p>\n

Tell us why you love the artist and have a chance to win a free poster!\u00a0Shout-Outs are only available on mobile devices.<\/p>\n

assy 009<\/a>\u2019s \u2018Dreamer+\u2019 opens with the dissonant sound of a motorcycle engine revving in the distance. Quickly, it builds in intensity, the phantom vehicle drawing closer and closer, as if arriving to transport us from our own gloomy reality to a distorted dreamland. This is the long-awaited debut album from Sunniva Lindg\u00e5rd\u2019s alt-pop project, a record that treads the hazy line between our dreams and our physical existence, pondering who we become while we sleep. Are we more ourselves \u2013 freed from inhibitions and societal confines \u2013 or do we become somebody else entirely?<\/p>\n

S<\/p>\n

Lindg\u00e5rd is still asking herself that question when she speaks to NME from Los Angeles in late November. The Oslo native is visiting the city in search of fresh inspiration, something that she\u2019s hungry for after coming to the end of the long, arduous road to her first full-length record, which arrives in January, almost a decade after she debuted as Sassy 009.<\/p>\n

\"SassySassy 009 on The Cover of NME. She wears a T-shirt by Palace, a jacket by Deadwood, trousers by A-Cold-Wall*, shoes by J.L-A.L and gloves by Palace. Credit: Furmaan Ahmed for NME<\/p>\n

Since 2017, the project has been receiving acclaim for its experimental, enigmatic brand of techno pop. Initially, Sassy 009 made waves as a trio, completed by two former high school classmates, but within two years, those bandmates had departed the group, leaving Lindg\u00e5rd on her own. That shift in personnel, however, seemed more of a return to a natural state for her than a break-up. \u201cBefore we were a band, I had this project as my solo project for quite a few years,\u201d she points out. Lindg\u00e5rd marked this change with the defiant statement of her 2019 EP \u2018Kill Sassy 009\u2019 \u2013 a collection of urgent, dancefloor-ready electronic tracks built upon euphoric beats and spacey synth. The hyperpop<\/a>-imbued mixtape \u2018Heart Ego\u2019 soon followed, flexing her ability to write catchy, addictive hooks and the kind of pop<\/a> lyrics you can\u2019t help but mutter under your breath all day.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn \u2018Heart Ego\u2019, I wanted to see if I was able to make these catchy songs. This time around, I was trying to do the opposite\u201d<\/p>\n

But Lindg\u00e5rd\u2019s musical journey could have taken a very different route down the hallways of hallucinogenic pop than the one which it\u2019s travelled so far. Both of her parents are classically trained musicians, and in her youth, she cycled through a plethora of instruments, but none ever seemed to fit her just right. \u201cI think a part of me resisted, on one hand, my parents, but also their world and that very narrow frame that classical music is to begin with,\u201d she reasons now. \u201cYou\u2019re not supposed to stretch out your arms and be like, \u2018Here\u2019s me and my signature,\u2019 you know? But I wanted to do that immediately, so I was so frustrated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead of classical symphonies, it was the discovery of early EDM<\/a> \u2013 its colour and brashness \u2013 that she recalls inspiring her initially. \u201cThat\u2019s a space that I think my parents would never understand,\u201d she grins. Now, though, she admits that her feelings towards classical music have softened. \u2018Ruins Of A Lost Memory\u2019, the final track on \u2018Dreamer+\u2019, is an homage to her parents, sampling a melody they wrote for a Eurovision<\/a> Song Contest entry in the \u201990s. \u201cLooking back on it, that exposure to so much classical music must have formed me and my musicality in a way I can\u2019t really understand. Even when I was in my mum\u2019s stomach, she was sitting in the orchestra and playing, up until she couldn\u2019t anymore. I\u2019m sure that must affect me in a way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SassySassy 009 wears a jacket by Ch\u00f6ke, the stylist\u2019s own trousers and shoes by Ashley Williams. Credit: Furmaan Ahmed for NME<\/p>\n

\u2018Dreamer+\u2019 has been a product of Lindg\u00e5rd\u2019s internal dialogue for a long time \u2013 four years, in which she steered the project as both artist and producer \u2013 and perhaps that\u2019s why it feels so intriguingly insular. Its concept also heightens the sense of claustrophobia, with Lindg\u00e5rd viewing the record as a score to a fictional tale of a protagonist who loses her soulmate in a dream state. Across 12 guttural, glitchy tracks, the depths of her love and the intensity of her mourning are exorcised in a storyline that Lindg\u00e5rd says eerily began to reflect her reality.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like I could understand my life in a different way when I saw it from that perspective,\u201d she says. \u201cEventually it somehow became a working method that made it much easier to write, because I was stepping out of myself, seeing myself as a character and a creator of thoughts and feelings, rather than just trying to understand my own.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SassySassy 009 wears a T-shirt by Vintage Helmut Lang, a coat by A-Cold-Wall*, a skirt by Gil Hursthausen and shoes by Marsell. Credit: Furmaan Ahmed for NME<\/p>\n

Aesthetically, she took inspiration from the horror video game Silent Hill<\/a>, channelling its minimalist colour palette and subdued spookiness to conjure an intangible sense of gloom \u2013 the same one that hums in the background of our darkest dreams. Meanwhile, sonically, she leaned into \u201990s trip-hop and purposefully strayed from the poppier tendencies of her earlier music, favouring slower BPMs, looser, more ill-defined structures and grungy guitars to frame the record\u2019s uncanny themes. \u201cI\u2019ve been exploring my voice again by making this record, which I guess is a result of not trying to make pop songs,\u201d she says of the latter. \u201cOn \u2018Heart Ego\u2019, I really wanted to see if I was able to make these catchy songs. But this time around, I was trying to do the opposite.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thinking outside of those more easily palatable sonic references was also, in some ways, part of a wider desire to return to the purity of the way she made music as a teenager. \u201cI didn\u2019t really sing until I started making beats. That was the first time I heard my own voice, so I was kind of scared of it,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I was so free at the time. I didn\u2019t have any expectations on who was going to listen to it. It was just \u2018la la la\u2019 and then upload, the process was not complicated. I could use a bit of that mindset now, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to try to break through the noise\u201d<\/p>\n

That craving to return to creative purity speaks to the dystopian feeling that \u2018Dreamer+\u2019 also captures \u2013 operating, perhaps unintentionally, as an apt soundtrack to the feeling of detachment from one\u2019s own life that is increasingly common in our ever-digitised age. In tracing the warped reality of our dreams, Lindg\u00e5rd also taps into the zeitgeist of a terminally online generation doomed to crave a sense of freedom they\u2019ll never quite reach. In fickle attempts to capture this elusive feeling, pop culture has entered a now well-documented nostalgia loop, grasping at the aesthetics of long-ago eras in a last-ditch effort to feel something again. It\u2019s akin to the feeling of trying unsuccessfully to snap out of a nightmare or a bout of sleep paralysis.<\/p>\n

In the music industry, this is a particularly relevant conundrum \u2013 especially for artists like Lindg\u00e5rd whose careers grew from a version of the internet unrecognisable from the inescapable hellscape it has become. \u201cYou have to try to break through the noise,\u201d she says of the reality of releasing music today. \u201cIt\u2019s impossible to be free from that pressure if your ambition is to make a living from music, which is such a cursed blessing to be able to do. I\u2019ve been lucky not to have thought too much about that while I\u2019m creating, but it is definitely distorting the relationship I have with my craft. I think many artists can relate to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SassySassy 009 wears a dress and shoes by Ashley Williams. Credit: Furmaan Ahmed for NME<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a feeling she\u2019s been trying to define with other artist friends, landing on one succinct analogy: \u201cWorking with music feels like being in love with someone, but never being loved back,\u201d she explains. \u201cIt\u2019s a very bizarre, but not necessarily toxic, thing. The dynamic is so strange because sometimes you might feel validated by your own music, but once the moment is gone, there are all these other emotions. I haven\u2019t really found a solution to that, yet, but I would love to figure out a way to be more free again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collaborating, she says, has been helpful in beginning to regain that joy, \u201cbecause I\u2019m reminded of what I actually can do when someone else is in the room,\u201d she explains. When she set out to make \u2018Dreamer+\u2019, Lindg\u00e5rd was intent on regaining full creative control. As the record unfolded, she became keener to break out of the solitude that comes with that. \u201cI know now that I can do it by myself, but I also know that I don\u2019t have to,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ve had that experience, and I can claim my capabilities, but it\u2019s also been a lesson in seeing the beauty of collaborating as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Dreamer+\u2019 boasts features from Blood Orange<\/a>, BEA1991 and Yun\u00e8 Pinku<\/a> \u2013 flourishes on the album that represent some of the many changes in form throughout its four-year creation process. \u201cOriginally, I didn\u2019t want to have features, almost as a principle of \u2018this is my debut album, and it\u2019s me and not anyone else\u2019,\u201d she tells us. \u201cBut then I was becoming more and more frustrated with not being finished, and it felt like those tracks needed something that I, myself, couldn\u2019t imagine. They needed someone else\u2019s voice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SassySassy 009 wears a jacket by J.L-A.L, a dress by Katya Zelentsova, trousers by A-Cold-Wall* and the stylist\u2019s own shoes. Credit: Furmaan Ahmed for NME<\/p>\n

Now in Los Angeles, she\u2019s imagining her next project as more of a communal effort: \u201cI can make my own songs fully \u2013 from nothing to a finished thing by myself \u2013 but I\u2019m not necessarily as interested in doing that this time.\u201d Instead, she\u2019s scouring the city, \u201cfiguring out who I intuitively feel like working with creatively\u201d and daring to surrender the reins of Sassy 009 to outside input once again.<\/p>\n

Her first record, then, symbolises both an act of creative defiance and the constantly evolving nature of a project that began as a SoundCloud<\/a> profile almost a decade ago. As the record draws to a close, Lindg\u00e5rd\u2019s voice fades in, offering an epilogue that outlines our protagonists\u2019 heartwrenching fate. There\u2019s a burst of sound and, at once, the dream is over \u2013 eclipsed by bird song signalling a return to reality. Lindg\u00e5rd\u2019s ambition is that when it\u2019s finally heard, the record will be experienced in a manner similar to the dreams that exist as its muse \u2013 a universe we exist inside entirely, though just for a fleeting time.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that it resonates in a way that feels meaningful,\u201d she says. \u201cThere\u2019s so much music to listen to, and there are so many things we\u2019re exposed to all the time. If my album has the potential to actually, even if it\u2019s just for a moment, mean something to someone, that\u2019s all I could hope for it to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sassy 009\u2019s \u2018Dreamer+\u2019 is released on January 16 via Heaven-Sent\/PIAS.<\/p>\n

Listen to Sassy 009\u2019s exclusive playlist to accompany The Cover below on Spotify or on Apple Music here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Words: Laura Molloy
Photography: Furmaan Ahmed
Styling: Lottie Collins
Label: Heaven-Sent\/PIAS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The world’s defining voice in music and pop culture: breaking what’s new and what’s next since 1952. When…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216],"class_list":{"0":"post-350289","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}