London-based American singer-songwriter Ashnikko released their sophomore album “Smoochies” on October 17, 2025.
The album comprises 15 tracks, featuring a guest appearance from Swedish singer-songwriter COBRAH. Produced by Joep Joris Le Blanc, Lotus IV, Micah Jasper, Oscar Scheller and longtime collaborator Slinger.
This marks the first album in two years since the 2023 debut album “WEEDKILLER”.
Ashnikko said of the album, “It is honestly my favorite body of work that I've ever written. And I had so much fun writing it, and it is really so joyful. And I'm so proud of it, and I'm really nervous actually. With 'WEEDKILLER', I was like, let me step into my dungeons and dragons, fantasy realm, write some songs from that place. And with this one, I was like, time has gone on. Why don't I, for the first time in my life. Write about the human realm. And just like, take pages from my diary. And I feel like, Ashnikko, I am her, but also not. And I feel like for the longest time, my sage persona was this older sister that I created for myself. And now I feel like I woke up one day and I was like, Oh, I am Ashnikko now, and this album reflects that.”
They continued, “But I also just couldn't help myself but create a little character. So the lead character of Smoochies is called Sundae Smooch and I wanted the album to read like someone was peeking into my diary entries. Because when I write my diary, I like to make myself laugh. I always I'm writing in my diary like such an exhibitionist. I'm like, I'll write something really good, and I'll be like, I'm gonna laugh so hard at that in two years. That's like, my grandkids are gonna love this really crazy way to write in your journal. You should maybe just like write your feelings, like, have a cathartic moment. I feel I wanted it to be more autobiographical. I think I was a little fatigued by the high fantasy concept of WEEDKILLER. And I was like, 'You know what? I'm just gonna write about me for a second' and not shroud it in high fantasy metaphor. I wanted the album to feel a little bit like a like fever dream.”
They added, “Smoochies feels like Demidevil's older sister. It's sexy, playful, and feminine, while toeing the line of grotesque and absurd. I feel like purse sediment so much of the time - like a mess of crumbs and gum in receipts and lipgloss that I've forgotten about - so the album feels like that too. This is the first where I've written very autobiographically, but at the core of it all is personal autonomy and joyful whimsy.”
Ashnikko shared on social media, “Smoochie world was such an important place for me to inhabit to remind myself why I make music - to play, to offer my art to the sacred soup!! It was an exercise in eroticism, in power, in mischief, in grotesqueness!!! smoochies is the tiny door you find in the club bathroom that you crawl through on your hands and knees to a technicolor parallel dimension ruled by rat princesses. I learned so much through writing this album, and I had a fucking amazing time with my favorite people in the world!!!!”
Ashnikko explained some tracks for the album.
“Smoochie Girl” “I wrap myself up in steel plated bravado sometimes. I wanted to break from that and celebrate the fact that I am a sensitive lover girl. I'm like an open wound. It can be grotesque and painful butI ultimately love that about myself. Wrote this sticky little lover girl song with my faves Slinger and Tove Burman”
“Liquid” “'Liquid' is the most hedonistic version of me falling in love. Like, I don't care about the consequences, we will absorve each other into each others skin and just kinda crash and burn, baby, even if it's bad.”
“Trinkets” “I like teeth. I like buttons. I like bottle caps. I like little dolls. I like LA boo boo boos. I like little sunny angels. I like ribbons and I like to put ticket stubs on my tights. I love this record. It is really silly. It's playful, it's irreverent. It is I just think that boys like to be cute and small. And I like to hang my little boyfriends off of my purse, like a trinket, because I think they like it.”
“Chichinya” via Zach Sang Show “Yes [it's about her dog]. Her name's Wednesday but Chichinya's the name that I call her when she's being really mischievous. I don't call her 'dickless prick.' 'Chichinya' is basically if she were a human, I imagine that she would sing this song. She has so much attitude, she has really clear boundaries, she's kind of a bitch, she's really similar to me. We are so similar. She's not very cuddly but then I realized I've set the precedent for me. She comes and cuddles with me sometimes and we do it and we're like, 'Yeah, this is great, yes, sissy, I love you so much, I love you, my baby, my Chichinya,' and then five minutes later I'm like, 'I gotta get up so what are we doing here? I gotta get up and go to the bathroom and get a little treat from the fridge,' and so she's like, 'Whatever, we're not gonna cuddle, I guess, whatever,' and then I see her next week and we do it again. But we're on our own journies. We're sisters, we're best friends, we're mother-daughter in our own way but we're divas.”
“Skin Cleared” via Zach Sang Show
“It's like being wilfully, purposefully ignorant. Like, 'I have no idea why I feel so much better now that you're out of my life. I feel like the body keeps a score big time, you know? The body really keeps a score. I feel like when I'm going through a moment of emotional turmoil, my face breaks out, I got tummy issues out the wazoo. Intestinally, it's crazy for me, it's a ride for me, intestinally when I'm in a bad situation and my body always tells me. Maybe I don't have a Scottish man in my head as an intuitive voice but I do have a really fucked up tummy. I'm shitting and farting. It's terrible, it's horrible but at least I know, you know? When I got out of a previous relationship and I was having the worst acne and then as soon as I was on my own, it just cleared. My skin has been perfect ever since.”
“Full Frontal” “This is one of my favorite songs. I think that the lyrics are so irreverent and gleefully mischievous. I'm just like 'Babe, I'm not trying to use this brain anymore.' In this song, for a brief moment, I'm just gonna let go.”
“Wet Like” featuring COBRAH
“This is pure carnal lust and hedonism. This is music to stomp down the street to, eye f*ck a stranger in the club to, music to top to!”
“I Want My Boyfriends to Kiss” “I have this super cunt techno song I just wrote about the plot of challengers.”
“Sticky Fingers” “We have a very finite time on this earth, and i would rather spend my time investing in my friends and new skills and going on adventures, than being with someone (especially a man) who doesn't love me how i love me. get your sticky cheeto dust hands off me!!”
“Itty Bitty” “There's nothing more effective for healing a broken heart than an itty bitty teeny tiny little slutty skirt. The itty bitty skirt (or whatever your personal equivalent may be) is godly and should never be dismissed. Our bodies are our most intimate canvases – the ritual of getting ready to go out with friends is one of my favourites. We arm ourselves with trinkets, talismans and amulets, treating beauty and self-expression as a devotion to life itself.”
“It Girl” via Zach Sang Show
“['It Girl' is talking about] Killing off a version [of herself]. Killing off a validation system that isn't helpful. I think the concept of the it girl, of the cool girl is so ephemeral it's not real and I think that, in the entertainment industry, a lot of people aspire to have. I feel like in this industry you take your sense of validation and you remove it from your body and you have it out here and you're tethering to something that you can't control. And so how my music performs and what people think of me, that's how I feel about myself if I'm not careful and if I don't pull it back and put it back inside of my chest and I think the it girl is like a wild stalion and if I tie how I feel about myself to the it girl, she's just gonna drag me on my back across the desert and I'm gonna have stones embedded in my skin, I'm gonna be bloody and I'm not gonna feel very good about myself, I'm not gonna be able to have a long happy career in music. I wanna have longevity in my music career and I need to feel proud of myself and it's hard to do 'cause there are external forces that make that hard. We all have a little it girl, I feel like if you exist in the modern world, it's really hard to escape the it girl and something that is passed on from my mother and my mom's mom. It's like this daisy chain of, 'Here you go, here's this very unhelpful validation system. Here's this currency,' specially as a person who's perceived to be a woman by society. I feel like I'm forced to trade into this beauty currency that fades and it doesn't last forever and it's so fickle and fleeting and I see people like my mom and my aunt and woman that I love so, so much feeling like thier value decreaces as they get older and it breaks my heart because you have this limitless life spread out before you. I tell my mom now, 'You can completely change careers, you can do whatever you want,' and to see that she feels in some small way that her value has decreased in any way with age absolutely cracks me open. I feel like to be loved is to be seen as a whole person, to be seen as grotesque, ugly, beautiful, carnal, wrinkly, dirty, clean and sexy creature. To be the whole spectrum of human that isn't afforded to women in general. And, yes, I would like to reclaim that for myself and for my mommy and my grandma and my future children and my friends.”
