Sasha Cay returns with their sophomore record Will Tell Trick (Mint Records, February 2027) three years after their debut Spin—a DIY effort that generated word-of-mouth buzz that led them festival appearances, year-end lists, and a curious array of opening slots: the band’s dynamic live show equally at home opening for psych-punks Population II and shoegazers No Joy as they are for Stephen Steinbrink and Eliza Niemi.
Taking their noise-pop sensibility and narrative peculiarities into the studio for the first time, Sasha Cay recorded Will Tell Trick with Scott “Monty” Munro (Preoccupations, Ribbon Skirt) and bandmate Rhys Climenhage. The record is a meeting point of sincere lyricism and warped, cinematic soundscapes: vocals shift between a Lou Reed drawl and a Stina Nordenstam murmur, while Monty’s production expands the band’s spontaneity and warbly guitar tones into Swirlies-tinged shoegaze and enigmatic drones before collapsing back into sparse, lo-fi passages like modern mutation of the Pixies’ loud-quiet-loud formula.
Amid washes of feedback and acrid guitars, Sasha paints scenes of peering through doorframes, candies twisting from their wrappers, intermittent halos strobing against silhouettes, darkness coming in and out. There is a particular sleight at hand at work throughout Will Tell Trick, a now-you-see-me, now-you-don’t.
The confluent vision comes into sharpest focus on the title track, a song that distills the contradictions running through both Sasha’s creative practice and the band’s sound: untidy yet careful, dark yet hospitable, intimate yet elusive, constantly holding opposites in the same space. That duality is mirrored in the vocals, pitched a sweet octave above and a brooding octave below — like Sega Bodega with the candor of Arthur Russell. Told like a secret, it belongs to a record preoccupied with secrecy, with revealing and concealing, and asks the listener to earn its trust before arriving at the final admission, “now you know everything.” Then, just as suddenly as it has opened itself up, the song evaporates into a reversed piano, pulled away like all the air in the room suddenly vanishing.
The record is a clear 35-minute burst of syncretism, the band pulling together opposing forces with surprising deft, both a clear continuation of the group's hypnotic lo-fi noise pop appeal and a large unexpected leap forward — Will Tell Trick is a succinct assemblage of Sasha Cay’s particular tastes and practices drawing focus on a first studio album. You can feel that it is a project brought together by years of focus and care, perhaps apt for a record that concerns itself so deeply with decisions — but despite themselves — it’s clear that Sasha Cay is listening to their intuition.