30 March 30th–april 5th, 2023 phoenixnewtimes.com phoenix new Times | music | cafe | film | culTuRe | NighT+Day | feaTuRe | NeWs | OPiNiON | feeDBacK | cONTeNTs | Month XX–Month XX, 2014 phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | NEWS | OPINION | FEEDBACK | CONTENTS | Mental Turbulence Sam An talks about a new album, almost leaving music, and finding peace in destruction. BY CHRIS COPLAN C alling yourself “Lana Del Rabies” can prove a tad problematic. Not because it isn’t super memorable — even several years later. Or that it’s not a singularly perfect name for the bizarro electronica made by Phoenix multimedia artist Sam An. Even that it somehow repelled people; if anything, chunks of her fan base came with from the name and stayed thanks to An’s beguiling work. No, it’s that the name came to exemplify the pitfalls of life as a professional artist. It was, in some ways, another thing that An had to manage, and she found herself struggling. “Probably around 2019, 2020, I was in a place where I felt very at odds with not just the name, but I think the project itself,” she says. “Even though, in some respects, things were happening for me.” She adds, “The origins of this project came from a very mentally turbulent place. And when I started getting whatever kind of attention I was getting ... I was not mentally in a place to [handle it.] Yeah, I was putting myself in the work, and I really cared about it, but in terms of being able to handle any of it, I was not there.” Luckily for An — if you can actually call any of this fortuitous — COVID-19 struck. Being stuck inside alone and becoming what she calls a “hermit” gave An opportu- nities to re-evaluate her life and artistry. “I had this slow-burn plan to make that transition from LDR into the next ‘level’ of the project,” she says. “So essentially it was, ‘I’m going to take control of this and do this sort of transition now.’” But it wasn’t until later in the pandemic, sometime in spring 2022, when An fully cemented the transformation she’d devised. “So, ironically, I came out to Austin, Texas, last year [for March’s South by Southwest] , and it gave me an opportunity to reconnect with people in the music scene, people I hadn’t seen in years,” she says. “I was in a place where I thought I was quitting music, to be honest with you. Because it had been so long, and I didn’t really have a plan anymore.” She adds, “There were some really trau- matizing things around death that had happened during COVID. And I think I was in a place where I was questioning quite a bit about what mattered in life. The thing you thought mattered, my art ... makes you think if it’s going to matter in the long run. So it took physically recon- necting — with people I’ve connected with all around the country, and even people I hadn’t met before.” ‘In My Heart, I Cared About It’ All those vital personal connections helped An contextualize her career and come to terms with what she still wanted out of being a professional artist. “At the end of the day, and it sounds cliche, but you have to make yourself happy,” An says. “So that’s really the only thing you can prioritize.” That insight gave her the motivation and courage to not only finish up a new record, but to do so in a way that maxi- mized her own inspirations. “I had this album that I had worked on that I was shelving [because] I’d told myself [it] doesn’t matter,” she says. “And in my heart, I cared about it. So I wanted to give it a shot for myself, and not really for anybody else. Or even any agenda around what success in the industry is these days.” Part of this acceptance is that An’s no longer a newbie, and she’s had the chance to learn lessons — the easy and hard ways — about moving through an increasingly complicated industry. “I think we overcomplicate it when we don’t have to. It’s very easy to make things about numbers and success,” she says. “I think every artist goes through that when you’re breaking through — you’re just so excited to be doing this at all. I feel like I’m jaded but in a good way now. I feel like you go through such a roller coaster with it that you realize you really can only focus on what’s in your control. I can control the output and the art.” An says she can also control some of the more isolating tendencies she’s cultivated over the years. She’s found the patience and energy to connect with others, as she did in Texas, in making this latest record. “It’s been really satisfying to collaborate a lot with other artists during this album cycle,” she says. “Like, even T-shirt and merch designs have been collaborative, which has actually felt better to me than trying to do it on my own. I’m making it less about me, but I’m also making the focus my happiness.” The resulting album is the newly released STREGA BEATA, which translates to “Blessed Witch” in Latin/Italian. The 10-track effort is, per a press release, “an apocalyptic myth” focused around “existen- tial, cathartic, and otherworldly themes. ...” It is, as An notes, “the most time I’ve taken on anything,” adding that’s mostly “because of the pandemic, but it also really has taught me the value.” Death, Rebirth, and Reckoning In many ways, the record’s larger narrative structure builds on An’s recent lessons in finding herself and working with others, albeit with a noticeably dramatic sheen. “The narrative is this mythological creator figure,” she says. “I went through many different revisions of what the hell I was doing with that. But I needed that metaphor to process how complicated my emotions were toward myself and the world at that point. And even through the pandemic, that completely shifted what my lens was on a lot of things.” She adds, “It’s cliche, but ultimately the record’s theme is death and rebirth. But in more of the sense that you control your own. Basically, it’s needing to kill off parts of yourself that are not serving you or the world. We’re reaching this point where we need to reckon with things. Like, is the planet even going to survive if we don’t reckon with certain things?” And while the album’s clearly darker in its scope and mood, An believes there’s something semi-optimistic that abounds. “Maybe this was part of that experience of the pandemic that I went through, but I think death isn’t traumatic, but it’s neces- sary in some situations,” she says. “And then in other situations, death is just some- thing that happens, and we have to get through it. We have to be sort of reborn through that process in some way.” Perhaps that’s not positive, per se, but it definitely trends toward bigger ▼ Music Artist Sam An has released a powerful new album in STREGA BEATA. Josue Orozco >> p33
