Sakai Announces Epic Debut EP - ‘Do You Like Me Now?’… & We Certainly Do!
- 6 hours ago
- 2 min read
“It feels so good to release the DYLMN EP. It’s a vulnerable thing, sharing something you’ve poured yourself into with the world. It’s a delicate dance.”
When Marié Sakai describes the release of Sakai’s debut EP Do You Like Me Now? in those terms, she is describing the subject of the record itself, which makes the statement more resonant than most artist quotes tend to be. This is an EP about wanting to be seen and fearing what being seen costs. About seeking connection while dreading exposure. About the delicate dance, specifically, between vulnerability and performance, and what happens to your sense of self when you spend too long in the performance and forget which side you were on to begin with.
The five-piece San Francisco band, Marié alongside Audie Bethea on guitar, Brendon Daugherty on bass, Caroline Carter on drums and Ryan DiCenzo on keys, formed in 2025 and recorded at Tiny Telephone in Oakland with additional overdubs at Women’s Audio Mission in San Francisco, engineered and mixed by Danielle Goldsmith and mastered by Amar Lal. These are not incidental details: the specificity of the recording environment, the deliberate choice to record at Women’s Audio Mission, speaks to a band making conscious decisions about where their music is made and what those decisions mean.
The four tracks cover remarkable sonic ground. ‘Orange Tree’ is built using the Hirajoshi scale, a traditional Japanese pentatonic tuning system, and features flute, emerging from an eighth-century Japanese poem and a shamisen and koto recital Marié attended in San Francisco. The result merges literary influence with contemporary composition to explore relational impermanence in a way that feels both ancient and entirely of the present moment. ‘Out’ confronts existential anxiety and avoidance with a self-questioning loop that will be immediately recognisable to anyone who has ever chosen distraction over engagement. ‘Wanted’ captures the physicality of longing through lyrical ambiguity deliberately crafted to invite listeners to project their own experience. The title track builds toward a dynamic shift powered by a grand piano that arrived spontaneously in the studio: unplanned, unrepeatable and exactly right.
Each band member’s individual description of what the EP means to them reinforces what the music itself communicates: this is collective work in the truest sense. A debut of genuine artistic intelligence and considerable emotional courage.
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