Past, present: I was born in Melbourne, Australia in the late ‘90s, then moved to New Orleans when I was very small (I still have two passports). After Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, my family moved to Houston where I have been puttering around and hereabout ever since. Texas isn’t my endgoal, but it’s what I’ve got for now.
Concerning Sound: I played piano as a child and cello all throughout middle school, high school, and college. I’ve been making my own music in DAWs since 2015. I was inspired to get into it after I played UNDERTALE for the first time and learned that Toby Fox made the whole soundtrack by himself. Something important clicked for me in that moment—anything felt possible.
I started out in Pulseboy, a free online chiptune tracker, then quickly moved on to FL Studio 11 (the classic choice of pirates worldwide!) and cycled through a few now-defunct aliases while making some truly heinous IDM and lo-fi hip-hop beats. I didn’t take the “production” side of things very seriously at this time (I didn’t even understand the concept of signal flow), so nothing from this period has much value except as a time capsule.
An-Origin: In 2019, I switched over to Bitwig Studio and picked out the name Secat. It’s kind of embarrassing to explain, but it relates to a novelty Twitter account I was running in these days named “An the Pig.” I thought it would be nice to introduce a friendly side character called Se the Cat into An’s universe; later, I scrapped the idea, but the name stuck with me (and I also liked that I couldn’t find any other artists named “Secat” in RateYourMusic or streaming databases). I’ve thought about using different aliases, but for now I enjoy having everything collected “under one roof.”
Words-ly: My writing “career” happened a little by accident; in 2019, I started writing stream-of-consciousness “album reviews” on Wordpress that were patterned heavily after Pitchfork’s The Eminem Show review by Ethan P. Later, my partner ODAE connected me with the blog COUNTERZINE where I had the opportunity to create and run a few regular columns including “Bandcamp Roulette” and “AmusingMusings” for a short time (this burnt me out very quickly).
In 2020, I happened to come across a Twitter post from Joshua Minsoo Kim of Tone Glow soliciting contributors for the newsletter's “Favorite Non-Canonical Albums of 2000” issue. I DMed him to ask if I could take part in the issue and he agreed. A long few months of radio silence passed before I worked up the courage to follow up and ask if the issue was still coming out and if I was still able to contribute. He had long since decided against pulling in any outside writers for that issue, but he gave me a shot anyways; after I sent in my blurb he asked me if I’d be interested in joining Tone Glow officially. Pretty much every professional connection or opportunity I’ve been fortunate enough to receive in music writing ever since has been related to my work in Tone Glow in some way; it really changed my life forever. Thanks, Josh!
Gender, Wise: I don’t have one. They didn’t give me one. I don’t want one. Don’t ask me about it. Really, it’s not particularly complicated but I don’t know how to write it down. It’s 1) Not Cis and 2) Extrabinary. I'm pretty chill with any pronouns you’d like to use to describe Sasha the Artist (yes, that includes “it.”) Sasha the Person is still figuring things out, but usually favors “they” in casual conversations.
I like talking over text (send me a mail!), but I’m not as at ease in person; I worry that I’m too standoffish. Regardless, I do my best.
In the hopes that it will be either instructive or a source of some enjoyment and discovery.
My favorite albums include:
My favorite films include:
My favorite games include:
I like a lot of other stuff too, of course, but currently these all feel especially important to me in some way.
My taste in books is more nascent, but I enjoy The Left Hand of Darkness, Delany’s Return to Nevèrÿon series, Flaubert in Egypt, Tales of Soldiers and Civilians, Walser’s Microscripts, and Persuasion.
Additionally, some of my favorite videos online are:
Ok, that's really it. Thanks for reading!