Star Amerasu began her career making gorgeous, lo-fi and brutally honest electronic pop, and with her latest album, never, really alone, she takes us out of her bedroom studio and into the club.
The dance music project pairs her ethereal vocals with high-energy tech-house beats that call to mind late ’90s classics by Alice Deejay and Jocelyn Enriquez. Amerasu’s pen is sharp as ever, and standout tracks like “way of the doll” and “not okay( i’ll be fine)” speak to alienation and darkness she’s experienced as a trans woman, threading the needle between personal and universal. With the hopeful coda of “we’ll b okay,” she pays homage to trans people whose support she credits with saving her life.
never, really alone hit streaming platforms on July 19, and Amerasu celebrates with a release party called Dancing With a Star at legendary queer club The Stud, which reopened earlier this year. She’s throwing the event in conjunction with mainstay of the San Francisco LGBTQ+ nightlife scene, Hard French, and the trans dance party T4T. DJs Brown Angel, Charles Hawthorne and Papa Xanny will join Amerasu behind the decks, and she’ll also perform tracks from the album live.
Dancing With a Star closes a busy summer for Amerasu. After Hours, an Elliot Page-produced short film she directed and starred in, premiered at the queer film festival Frameline in June. Ever the multihyphenate, Amerasu also DJed at Outside Lands earlier this month.
Dancing with a Star takes place at The Stud (1123 Folsom St., San Francisco) on Aug. 24, 10 p.m.–2 a.m. Details here.
