Pushmi-Pullyu recently caught up with writer // musician // producer, Asher White, when she was passing through the Bay Area for a show at Eli’s Mile High Club in Oakland. Tune in on Friday, June 5th at 8:30pm to hear their conversation.
As a multi-instrumentalist and producer, Asher White’s auteurish pop vision is vulgar and transcendent: marrying skittering noise with swooping strings, lively banjo with blasts of feedback, dissonant flutes with elegant bossa nova.
Since the early 2010s she has developed a sprawling discography that spans experimental drone, tropicalia, noise rock, and folk. Her heartfelt and compulsively inclusive aesthetic is often informed by her transness, her Jewish spirituality, and her ongoing negotiations with hedonism. Her music runs in parallel to her work as a visual artist and writer; her first book was published by Atlantic Filtration Systems in 2024.
Latest album, 8 Tips for Full Catastrophe Living darts and weaves among boldly varied musical styles. Doom metal splits open into bossa nova; psychedelic rock and power pop flip into industrial techno. The record’s quick turns and vivid contrasts reflect White’s cultural voraciousness. A writer, painter, and sculptor as well as a musician, she gathers materials constantly, always digging for new ideas in every possible form.
Photo: Jessica Dunn
