A week before dropping her own take on Ashnikko’s WEEDKILLER track ‘You Make Me Sick’ – an anger-packed rap anthem, raging against an old lover with graphic, imaginative threats and tongue-in-cheek insults – Californian alt-pop musician Dora Jar penned a happy birthday message to her friend on Instagram.
“Thank you for your gifts of song and laughter and the emotional liberation you inspire in me,” Jar wrote to Ashnikko in the post’s caption, alongside an image of the duo laying in a grassy field, faces painted with flowers, cigars hanging from their mouths. “I carry a jagged rage and a soft sadness about the state of the world and the evil humanity is capable of. Your art helps me access those deep and confusing emotional realms.”
As teased in the caption, the remix – produced by Jar and Aaron Paul O’Brien – exposes a softer, sadder undercurrent beneath Ashnikko’s rage, located by isolating their original vocals and collaging them together with acoustic guitar, swirling synths, ASMR voice memos, and an ethereal outro written by Jar.
“It’s like an evolution of the story that I told originally,” Ashnikko tells Jar – who based the remix on her own past experiences of needing to let out anger – over Zoom. “You really resolved that narrative. It started off so prickly, but you came in and smoothed down the edges – it was a natural continuation of the story.”
Here, in conversation for BRICKS, the two musicians and friends open up about the ‘You Make Me Sick!’ remix, why anger can feel like a liberating release, and their fondness for each other’s art.
Hannah Bertolino: First up, tell us a little bit about ‘You Make Me Sick!’, it was previously released in 2023, why did you decide to re-release it with a collaborator?
Ashnikko: Dora is a good friend of mine, and I really wanted her to remix something from WEEDKILLER because I think she is a little magician. I was like, “[Remix] whatever is speaking to you,” because I feel like sometimes when they’re very strict rules on making music, it’s not super inspirational. I was definitely surprised that you were most drawn to “You Make Me Sick!”.
Dora Jar: Really! I didn’t know that, tell me more.
A: I was just being very smooth-brained. I wasn’t full god-mode that you and Aaron were in – the big-brained megamind vibe. You guys are in the studio really cheffing up. George, my manager, was like, “Oh yeah, she’s gonna remix ‘You Make Me Sick!’, and I just couldn’t even fathom what that would sound like. Then I heard it, and I was shaking in my boots – especially when you say that line, “I’m empty from filling you up,” I was like, slamming my head against the wall. It just fit, and I think you just did it so perfectly, and so unexpectedly. That’s what I love about your music, I just don’t know where you’re gonna go. You’re taking me on a journey for sure.
The original version is just this open, festering wound, and I feel like you took it to a healing space and resolved the story in a really eloquent way. Mine was kind of oozing toxic sludge and then you came back a year later and you were like, “Hey, these are the reasons why I’m so mad!” and it resolved the story.
The reason “You Make Me Sick!” was at the top of my brain was because I’ve had so heavy of an emotional reaction to it.
Dora Jar
DJ: The reason “You Make Me Sick!” was at the top of my brain was because I’ve had so heavy of an emotional reaction to it. I even told you about it like in the summer, and I was shocked. I’ve never heard your voice go to places like this, and just how raging it was felt so liberating. Then it took a turn in the summer when I was coming to terms with some things internally…
A: [Sings] Saturn’s return!
DJ: Exactly! And the rage that I connected with initially went a little bit deeper. I was driving while listening, and I just started crying on Sunset Boulevard, turning while the bass was cutting and I was like, “What is happening?” So when we began approaching the remix with Aaron in the studio, we were like, how can we reveal that emotion and keep those essential elements and expose a different light? It’s the sad, scared person who’s always going to be underneath whatever rage is raging.
A: That’s beautiful, I love that. I remember I first heard it, and I was giving it a car listen – because that’s the best way to listen to music, just how you feel when you’re driving – it was very, very special. You have a gift, my Lord.
DJ: I carry the torch!
A: My leisurely liege! Hannah, I don’t know if you saw but we were smoking cigars together.
DJ: [Laughs] It was our way to be sick.
H: Haha, I did! How did you two meet and start working together?
DJ: I think it was 2019, and I heard “Stupid” and I was like, “Okay, here we go. Obsession.” My cousin was so obsessed [because] she was going through a breakup, like you were the absolute soundtrack of the breakup. I was there for that whole era – we went to your show in London, and it was emotional for both of us. Then you reached out after I put out “Bump”, the teapot feet video, which just makes sense that you’d see that and resonate because you’re my freak and I’m your freak.
A: I was like, “Who’s this little lord with the teapot feet? I must know them.
DJ: When you DM’d me I was like “WHAT!” I was going to faint. Then we met at a birthday party months later. We found each other at this cookie decorating station, but the solidifying factor was the next night you had a Winter Solstice gathering. Then we just continued going on hikes and soaking in tubs together.
A: Dora’s music is so important to me, and I am just so excited for all the stuff that she has coming out and the stories that she will weave. When I was in the studio with you and Aaron that one time – we just had a session just to be silly gooses – and I was just marvelling at your melodies. It really felt like the skies had parted open, and God was putting their finger upon your forehead and pressing down. Meeting you and working with you is a great joy of my life. It just made sense to put out a remix, and I love making music with people that I love. It is cool.
Dora’s music is so important to me, and I am just so excited for all the stuff that she has coming out and the stories that she will weave.
Ashnikko
DJ: Na Zdorovie to that!
A: My New Year’s resolution two years ago was to only make music with people that were so inspiring and brought me so much joy in the studio. I feel it ever since then I’ve been flooded with these really beautiful soul connections with my musical collaborators. It’s been really great, and this song is a part of that beautiful world.
H: What is it about each other’s work that really speaks to both of you?
A: What I really enjoy about your lyrics and your music in general is that I feel like you write songs that you hear in dreams. You know when you’re in a dream and you’re writing a song and like, “This is the best fucking song I’ve ever heard in my life!” You’re just recording those songs. You have direct access to those songs, and you’re syphoning them straight from the dream world into the real one – it feels like I’m listening to the soundtrack of dreams. Familiar, but so otherworldly.
DJ: With Ash I remember laughing while hearing “Stupid”, and then “Daisy” came out a year or so later… you have like the archetype of the Joker, but in this way that plays with our own sinister-ness. And then also [we are] innocent and sinister, and we can shape shift and be so many things. I just remember laughing like, “Oh my god, this person gets it so much.”
It’s so liberating to know that you can shape shift and be so many things. I was like 21 or 22, and just trying to figure out how to be a person in the music industry – like you have to be perceived as like one thing, so it makes sense. Then you came along and I was like, “Oh no, you can literally just yell in someone’s face then switch around and be sweet, and then do a little acrobatic dance jig all over.” It just confused the fuck out of everybody, and that is the best thing.
A: I think I remember the moment where I was like, “Middle fingers up, y’all. I’m doing what I want.” People are really chained to one image or one sound, but there’s an infinite world.
HB: Songs about anger or rage feel quite liberating to me. I feel like society tells women and feminine-presenting people that being angry is a bad thing, so listening to music that displays those types of emotions can feel so euphoric or cathartic. Can you speak a bit about the anger behind this track?
A: Mine was a very literal rage. I love to make angry music, because it really is such an incredible release. I’m way less of a hothead than I was when I was younger, but I am a fiery individual. There’s a lot of things to be angry about, and I think that letting that emotion pass through you – like a bowel movement – it’s much healthier. I don’t want to be constipated with this feeling. I feel like when I’m making music like this, I’m not holding on to it. Some people are like, “Oh, you’re so mad.” I’m like, “Not really!” I feel like I have the feeling. And then I let it pass through me, and it’s done.
When I’m performing [angry songs] – especially when I do this song live – I am so euphoric.
Ashnikko
When I’m performing [angry songs] – especially when I do this song live – I am so euphoric. You’re sharing that moment with people, and everyone’s releasing it at the same time – you can feel it all swilling in the air above your heads. It’s so funny because every time I play this song, it’s the only song that makes me want to cry. Everyone else is releasing at the same time, so that’s the song that I open my set with and I’m always about to cry. Especially when I say, “I’m mad” and everyone’s headbanging, I’m like, “Oh wow, what a beautiful thing for us all to share. I feel so much lighter now.”
DJ: So many people question their anger and they try to soften it or make it more palatable. You don’t do that, and that’s why it’s liberating. We all have it to that intensity and that degree and, unless we can feel it, it’s not going to change or pass through. Which brought me to the sweet, sort of sad side I cooked into my remix.
H: It really is liberating – almost like therapy when you’re at a gig and singing to each other, the crowd and the artist. And the rage is really warranted given the world we live in right now.
A: For me, there’s just a lifetime of being perceived as a woman. I am gender fluid, but [there’s] a lifetime of existing in womanhood and having little thorns wedge their way in and little things that we have to shoulder and carry with us. It’s nice to unload them.
H: Can you tell me a bit about the creative process of this track? How was it recorded? What was the process like for both of you?
DJ: Aaron was the only person I thought of when going for this. I had no idea what I was going to do, except I knew what I was inspired by in the original song and other songs that I wanted to pull inspiration from – the first one being “The Lemon of Pink” by The Books. It’s an iconic track that feels like a song collage – there’s layers coming in and out and it feels like you’re travelling, but also very ASMR. We have this voice memo I put in the remix from my choir in 2014 singing this bird song, so it became a collage of time. I was trying to think of moments in my life when I felt like this and like high school was definitely one of the moments.
Then there was the guitar that we brought in which just felt like my little stamp because guitar is my first love, and I wanted to add the emotional undertone with guitar because that’s always what helps me feel my feelings when I’m confused. So, we started by just like stripping it and keeping Ash’s voice – which, by the way, was so sick to hear isolated from any other sounds. The way you’re yelling and screaming just gives me chills every time and it was a privilege to be able to hear it with nothing else over it. I wanted to peel away layers and put layers in that reveal the sadness.
A: The melodies in the outro are like, “Punch me in the balls.” When you’re repeating, “You’re a liar,” then you’re like: “Greedy parasite / I kick you out of town / Mommy’s alright.”
DJ: Ash, can you tell the story of “Mommy’s okay”?
A: I was screaming while I was recording and cutting vocals, and my dog comes to the studio with me all the time, so she was looking at me so concerned for me and my wellbeing. So I kept having to be like “Mommy’s okay!” just to set her at ease. I love you ending with “Mommy’s alright”. You just put it so succinctly into a way that I’ve been trying to say for a long time.
H: I love that so much. Was there anything you learned from each other while working together on this? Or through your friendship in general?
A: Dora, you’re very observant of the details of your literal dreams and the waking world. The things that you see and put into your lyrics – it’s very inspiring for me as a songwriter, and it makes me want to be more observant of all of those small details and to reflect those back in my work as well. Some of the snippets that you’ve been posting really transplant me into the world that you’re writing about, and I feel like you just notice the smallest details in the tiniest little beauties that makes me want to be more observant in my life as well. [You’re a] massively inspiring friend and artist.
DJ: Same. In a similar way, you’re so in touch with how you’re feeling. Sometimes I use details to avoid saying how I feel, but you are so able to cut to the core of exactly what’s going on and say it with no fluff. Then you also have beautiful metaphors and imagery that weaves like a dream too, but you always say, “This is what it is.” Sometimes I have trouble committing to one point of view, but you’ve definitely helped me commit to that.
Then also, just how into nature you are. I’ve always felt like I needed a friend to touch roots and marvel at the moon with, and you have filled that void in my life in such a beautiful way.
A: I think we have a beautiful future of staring at roots, my friend! So many more roots to look at and so many more cigars to smoke.
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