jasmine.4.t On The Journey Of 'You Are The Morning': It's About 'Finding Little Joys Amongst It All'

There is a moment on the ninth track of Jasmine Cruikshank’s debut album, You Are The Morning, where you can hear the indie rock singer-songwriter gently dissolve into tears.

The song is called New Shoes, and, along with the rest of the album, it was produced by Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and Julien Baker—the three members of queer supergroup boygenius.

Cruikshank, framed on Zoom by a curtain of vibrant hair—one half hot pink, the other half electric blue—reveals that when she broke down towards the tail-end of recording the track, “Everyone came in and held me, and we left the audio in. It perfectly represented that atmosphere of mutual care.” At the time, going through a painful divorce, her marriage having ended after coming out to her then-spouse as a trans woman, Cruikshank and her music were luckily in safe hands.

Under the stage name jasmine.4.t, Cruikshank was the first artist from the United Kingdom to be signed to indie folk powerhouse Phoebe Bridgers’ Saddest Factory Records, which is also home to such names as indie pop three-piece Muna and chamber pop-rock band Sloppy Jane.

When asked to describe the experience of working so closely with the Grammy Award-winning artists, she says, laughing incredulously, “Wild. I still can’t believe that that happened. It’s so disconnected from anything I’ve ever done before.”

She paints a picture of the recording process. “We were recording in Sound City, which is where Phoebe recorded her last album, Punisher.”

It is also where legends such as Johnny Cash, Fleetwood Mac, and Neil Young, among countless others, have recorded - big boots to fill. “So we were using the same vocal tuning that she used. She really knew her way around. She was very keen on trying to get the perfect song, the perfect sound before hitting record.”

Cruikshank, who is based in Manchester - a city that historically thrives on the musical fringes - praises the “lovely” and “collaborative” environment they created for her and her band members while they recorded at Sound City Studios.

“I think we were all very nervous travelling to L.A. as a group of trans women,” she says, speaking at a time when trans individuals are being routinely stripped of their rights to healthcare and subject to alarming rates of hate crimes. “Some of us had never been to America before. And they just really took care of us, really made us feel safe.”

It seems that Bridgers, Dacus, and Baker all brought different talents to the studio. “Phoebe just has an incredible ear for harmonies. She was doing a lot of the direction on vocal harmonies throughout the record,” Cruikshank explains.

“And Lucy and I go way back, so she had a lot more confidence to edit me, I think. Cutting a word from a line here and there to make the meaning more concise. Lucy has a really good knack for that. Julien has this incredible brain for guitar tones, which I think is one of the things that really holds the record together. It was amazing to have an authority on that.”

But does she find intense artistic collaboration challenging? Is it, for lack of a better phrase, like asking someone to hold her baby?

“It can be difficult to let go of that artistic control. But I don’t think I would ever work with someone I didn’t trust to hold my baby,” she says, laughing. “Obviously, working with Phoebe, Lucy, and Julien was a dream come true for me, and I would never turn that down, and I have so much love and respect for their music. And I knew that our communication was good enough that I would end up with something that I’m happy with.”

And now, Cruikshank is playing in Australia for the first time. jasmine.4.t will perform at Brisbane’s Black Bear Lodge on Thursday, October 16th, and at Melbourne’s Howler on Sunday, October 19th. Alt-pop luminary Phoebe Go will join jasmine.4.t in Melbourne, and both shows will be opened by indie singer-songwriter Stella Bridie.

“This has been a really intense year, we’ve done so many shows,” says Cruikshank - exhausted, but not without gratitude at the whirlwind her life has become. Indeed, just the night before this interview, she played a festival in Zurich. 

“My girlfriend lives in Zurich. I’m currently in her bedroom, and I’m going to be here for a week, which is really nice,” she says, her face brightening. “I have several partners, and I’m very lucky to be able to spend downtime with them while on tour. Being a serial long-distance poly lesbian,” she chuckles to herself, “I have this wonderful support network of my partners.

“And I have so much love from my bandmates. We’re all trans women, we all have each other’s backs, we all know what each other’s needs are and how to take care of each other, so I feel like I’m kind of taking this little bubble of my community around with me as well.”

Cruikshank’s music, while obviously at times sombre and confronting, is undeniably playful. On a standout track from the album, Guy Fawkes Tesco Dissociation, on which it is easy to discern Bridgers’ telltale crooning wail layered into the backing vocals, a banjo trills jubilantly through the opening measures of a song.

Then a voice states matter-of-factly, “That banjo’s gotta go.” A little whoop collapses out of someone’s mouth - possibly Cruikshank’s - and then the song begins in earnest. It is hard not to grin as it plays, despite the admittedly dark material the band is grappling with.

The lyrics themselves are poignant, painting a picture of dissociation amidst an attack of severe post-traumatic stress disorder: “But it is not me there, it’s someone wearing my hair / Telling you I’m okay and I’ll be back soon.” But the song itself still exists in a charming, cheeky sonic space, complete with merry, cascading strings and the return of that gleeful banjo, clearly indicating Cruikshank’s strength to overcome—and the joy in finally being able to do so.

In her music, Cruikshank oscillates sonically between fragility and strength. Guitar chords fluctuate between tenderness and rage; her voice plays the same balancing act. And she clearly enjoys toying with the way that people cannot help but assign gender to something as nebulous as sound.

“People expect women to be small and quiet and men to be big and loud, and it’s fun playing with that,” she says. “We consciously do that a lot. With the band, we really lean into a song, whether it’s quiet or loud, and exaggerate the dynamic.”

She concludes, “I think ultimately, we’re just trying to make music that is expressing our whole selves, and a lot of it is very angry music because we’re furious with the state, the powers that be, that are killing so many trans people, are imprisoning our friends.”

In fact, Cruikshank’s best friend, Yulia Trot, is currently in prison, alleged to have dismantled weapons in an Israeli weapons factory in Philton. “She used to roadie with us, and we miss her so much. A lot of the anger in my music comes from my anger at that situation, as well as my anger at the transphobic state.”

But it is important for Cruikshank not to focus solely on the discrimination and hardships that can plague life as a trans woman. “We are also trying to highlight these beautiful moments of trans joy.” She points to one of the songs on the album, Highfield, as an example.

Lyrics such as, “But therе's nothing like a red dress on a cloudy day in thе park / Makes the birds sing a little louder, makes my heartbeat a little prouder,” highlight the way that the smallest moments can be the ones that bring about tremendous healing and happiness.

“I think it’s important for people to see that it’s not a horrible, sad life that we live. A lot of people think trans people kill themselves because they fucking hate themselves or whatever. And it’s like, no, we get killed by the state because they don’t give us fucking health care. I think it’s just important to be like: look, if you transition, you can be happy.”

Though You Are The Morning undoubtedly explores heavy themes - transphobia, post-traumatic stress disorder, and divorce among them - Cruikshank describes the album as being about “finding these little joys amongst it all.” 

Performing those songs live - even when they are about topics like suffering from suicidal ideation and PTSD after an incident of street violence - can still be an act of joy.

“I don’t think songs are a static thing in their form,” she explains. “As in, every time I play a song, it will be different, especially as I’m playing these songs with incredible musicians who will have their own takes on them. But also in terms of its emotional content, these songs don’t always mean the same thing for me.

“When I’m singing them now, I’m applying them to my life now. I think it’s quite natural that now that I’m in a much happier life, it’s not painful at all to sing these songs. Because they are about finding these little joys, and I’m singing them about the chosen family around me.”

jasmine.4.t’s album, You Are The Morning, is out now. Tickets to her debut Australian tour are available now.

Presented by MG Live and I OH YOU

jasmine.4.t Australian Tour

Thursday 16 October - Black Bear Lodge, Brisbane | 18+
Tickets via Oztix

Sunday 19 October - Howler, Melbourne | 18+
Tickets via Moshtix