Every Monday, 88Nine music director Erin Wolf shares a sonic gem she found using her nearly 20 years of new-music exploration experience. You can hear all her discoveries at 2 p.m. every Sunday on What’s All This: Adventures in New Music.
So the story goes that in 2018, Lucy Dacus of boygenius fell in love with the music of trans, Manchester-based artist jasmine.4.t (Jasmine Cruickshank IRL) and immediately wanted to connect.
Cruickshank told NME recently, “Out of the blue, I got a message saying, ‘Hey, I’ve just got authorization to invite you to open for me on tour in Europe for my next album.” My bandmate and I [then] opened for Lucy on her ‘Historian’ tour.”
From there, the connection with Dacus quickly blossomed to include a connection with fellow boygenius member Phoebe Bridgers. She also fell madly in love with the songs of jasmine.4.t and signed her for her label, Saddest Factory [Claud, Sloppy Jane, MUNA], making Cruickshank the label’s first U.K. signee.
Fast-forward a wee bit, and jasmine.4.t has just released a new collection of songs called You Are the Morning, the boygenius-produced album recorded at L.A.’s Sound City Studio. Although it’s full of beautiful, funny, poetic and cathartic moments, Cruickshank’s spirit (and punk roots) shine through — particularly on single “Guy Fawkes Tesco Dissociation.”
Cruickshank says a dark night of the soul on Guy Fawkes Night inspired both the track and her decision to start eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EDMR) therapy. The Bristol-born artist explained:
I wrote this song about my divorce that was in progress (and my experience at a supermarket at the time). The second verse imagines a me in a brighter future, looking back at myself. I demoed it with two guitar tracks and two vocal tracks on a four-track cassette recorder. I panned the tracks so that one guitar and vocal was on the left, and one guitar and vocal was on the right. The vocal tracks sang alternate lines. This gave the impression of my voice going back and forth, left and right, mirroring the bilateral stimulation techniques of EMDR therapy.
This song captures the energy of burning everything down, leaving it behind and moving forward through the smoke.
You can hear jasmine.4.t’s “Guy Fawkes Tesco Dissociation” in the 88Nine rotation and as part of the latest episode of What’s All This, which is available via the player at the top of the page and on the 88Nine airwaves at 2 p.m. every Sunday. This spring, jasmine.4.t will also open for Lucy Dacus (along with MUNA) on tour, which will get as close as The Chicago Theatre on May 1.
This week’s best new music
- Shannon & The Clams, "Wax & String"
- youbet, "Deny"
- The Convenience, "I Got Exactly What I Wanted"
- Bria Salmena, "Stretch the Struggle"
- Yukimi, "Winter Is Not Dead"
- Baths, "Eden"
- Saya Gray, "LIE DOWN.."
- LAKE, "Wonderful Sunlight"
- John Glacier, "Ocean Steppin' (ft. Sampha)"
- Florist, "Have Heaven"
- jasmine.4.t, "Guy Fawkes Tesco Dissociation"
- lots of hands, "barnyard"
