“I think often trans women are expected to be soft. And I think more of us deserve volume.”
You Are The Morning is the debut album from Manchester-based artist jasmine.4.t, a trans singer-songwriter and the first UK signee to Phoebe Bridgers’s Saddest Factory Records. Produced by the members of Boygenius, the album was written over a long, tumultuous period of Jasmine’s life and covers love, heartbreak, growth and community; it is a beautiful and intimate collection of songs.
I was invited to a Zoom sit-down interview with Jasmine, where we talked about colours, tea, and the road that led her here now. At the bright and early time of 7:15am (or the twilit hour of 7:15pm UK time), the title of Jasmine’s album felt more prescient than ever.
J: Hi!
L: Hello! It’s so cool to meet you.
J: So cool to meet you! How are you?
L: I’m well! How are you this evening, and this morning?
J: Yeah! Good, I’ve had a very busy day, honestly. My best friend and chosen daughter is in prison for allegedly taking action against an Israeli weapons factory here in the UK. And yeah, I’ve just been trying to sort out various bits of admin for her, which is kind of like a full-time job.
L: I can definitely see how that would take up a lot of your day. Yeah.
J: Yeah, I know it’s a lot. But I managed to get out in the sunshine, which was really lovely. It’s been quite warm here. Went to Highfield Country Park, which is where the name of that song off my record comes from.
L: Yes! It’s a song that I really want to talk to you about as well.
J: Oh, awesome. Okay, cool. Well, yeah, let’s crack on.
L: Yeah, go on then. First of all, the album is gorgeous. It’s so beautiful.
J: Thank you.
L: I looked at the cover of it first and I was like, okay so the vibe that I’m getting from this is very sorta, techno and, you know not to, play on a stereotype but it’s by a trans woman so I wouldn’t be surprised if it was you know crazy electronic music
(When I mention the cover of the album, Jasmine’s face alights in a smile and starts laughing, seeing the direct result of the bait and switch her and her team devised.)
J: Yeah, I know it’s a good bit, and I’m glad you fell for it
L: It really is! And then the first song ‘Kitchen’ starts playing, and I’m like, oh, oh, this is gorgeous!
J: Yeah, that was funny. We just did that, as I think, just as a little joke. We were like, what if I present myself publicly as like, COBRAH?
(COBRAH, the Swedish electro-pop musician, is often seen in black, leather, and spikes)
L: Yes! (laughing)
J: And so, yeah, we just did the album shoot in latex, and it was great.
L: Absolutely fantastic. And I mean, why not? And I think the colours of it, though, give the album a very specific feel. And listening through to the album, there are a lot of colours that kind of jump out to me when I’m listening to it. Blue being a really big recurring one.
J: Oh, okay. I haven’t actually thought about this. This is the florist thing, I think. Do you know Florist?
L: Florist?
J: Yeah, Florist is this amazing project by Emily Sprague, who’s an incredible singer-songwriter. And the album that I’m specifically thinking about is ‘If Blue Could Be Happiness’, which is one of my favourite albums. And it’s just a song about, it’s a whole album about colour. And if you go through the lyrics, like the booklet that comes with the vinyl, every single colour is highlighted.
L: Oh, that’s so cute.
J: It’s really amazing how many colours are mentioned.
L: That’s so cool. I love that.
J: Anyway, that was just a little infodump for you.
L: No, that’s great. I’m gonna check that out right after.
J: It’s a really good album. They’ve just released their fourth album, which I’ve listened to a few times, but yeah, still getting into it.
But therе’s nothing like a red dress on a cloudy day in thе park
Highfield
Makes the birds sing a little louder, makes my heartbeat a little prouder
L: Hell yeah. But ‘Highfield’ specifically is the first in the album, as I listened through it, that really jumps out to me as like, a blue song. And I think there’s definitely the correlation with blue being more of a sombre colour and with the sound of this song, and there’s that aspect to it.
The first time I listened to it felt like I was watching back on a conversation with an ex through a CCTV camera in the corner of the room, just watching and unable to interact with anything going on. And having this kind of blue tinge over it, so it has this very bittersweet [feeling] because the music and your voice in it is so gorgeous, and then you have this very evocative imagery of like, the red dress and going through the streets. I wanted to ask if you were getting any of those colours as you went through the album.
J: Yeah, no, that’s a good question. Yeah, so I think what’s jumping to mind is just like when I was writing and recording these songs, my bedroom did not look like this.
(She motions to her room adorned with framed pictures and photos.)
J: I was just like, going from box room to box room. And I think I was just lacking a lot of colour in my life. Like thinking about the room that I wrote and recorded the demo for ‘Highfield’, which is the same place that I did ‘Breaking in Reverse’. I was just there for two weeks. It was so grim. It was like, mouldy and… Yeah, the one thing about it was that I could escape to Highfield, which is this country park in the south of Manchester. And I think I was really trying to grab on to any kind of joy or colour or anything that wasn’t The Horrors, in my life, you know what I mean. That’s kind of what I was trying to focus around when I was writing as well. So I think, yeah, it does make sense that those things found their way in. But yeah, no, that’s really interesting, but that’s the thing that you picked up on. Thank you.
L: Of course. And I think those feelings, definitely palpable in that, like, wanting more and wanting that colour. And especially in ‘Best Friend’s House’, which I also really want to talk about, and also ‘Elephant’ have these great moments of starting very quiet and singular and then kind of bursting through with colour and companionship.
‘Best Friend’s House’, with that first little bit where it’s just you and the guitar, makes me weep every time. And then when you get the rest of the band all start playing and everybody’s singing. It just feels like that moment of, when you are feeling so alone and then your friends come around and support you.
I wanted to ask what sort of process that you went through with that one, and especially recording with Boygenius, what was that like? Bringing in these extra elements to kind of create that feeling of companionship and community in some of these songs?
J: Yeah, I mean, I could talk for too long about this. Yeah, just, I think just going from where I was when I wrote that song. I was in the spare bedroom of the house of my first trans lover, and I was there for Christmas when they had gone home for Christmas, and feeling very lonely and very singular, as you say. And I invited some friends over to hang out, who also didn’t have family to go back to. And yeah, that included my friend Ambrose, who was one of the first trans people who I met. And he actually joined me on stage at the Six Music Festival singing that song, which was really sweet.
I actually have this memory of him being like, through in the other room while I was recording the guitar part, and I could hear him singing along, and you could actually kind of hear it in the background of the demo… But yeah, it was a very, very lonely existence. I didn’t really know many trans people, and you know everything that I had known to be my life up to that point had just been ripped away from me, my home, my marriage, my family. And I was, yeah, just like really, really struggling.
You are the morning
You are the morning, you make the grass grow
You are the hawthorn tangled in dog-rose
And then, I think then through Lucy [Dacus], we just, we’d always chatted. And Lucy was actually one of the first people who I came out to as trans. We’d toured together before, after meeting when I just was a local support for Lucy’s first album tour in Bristol.
But anyway, then they kind of gradually got more into the community here in Manchester after having arrived here. Then, yeah, I got signed by Phoebe after Lucy played Phoebe my demos, and I was literally just saying in the previous interview, it was so wild because Lucy was just like, “Oh, your life is just completely going to change at this point,” and I was like, “Uuuhh okaaayyy…” Yeah, it was like, “Are you ready for that?”
L: That’s gotta be crazy, if somebody’s just telling you, “Oh, by the way, your music’s so good that your life’s just, this is the end point now”.
J: And that really was like, I sometimes wonder if I am still, I’m just dreaming, and I’m still in that box room. But yeah, no, this seems to be reality. It’s gone on long enough now.
But yeah, and then I formed this band of trans women in Manchester, and we all flew out to LA and recorded it with the help of some other trans musicians there, as well as Lucy and Phoebe and Julian. And yeah, that song specifically, we had Becca Mancari, and E.R. Fightmaster, and Claude, also singing backing vocals, as well as Phoebe, Lucy, Julian. Eden, and Phoenix, my bandmates. I think that’s it on the vocals on that. And Addie, I think as well. Addie Watkins, she’s amazing.
The song was actually originally twice as long, it was just the same thing repeated twice. But Lucy is king of editing and just put a massive line through the whole second half. And I’m very grateful for that because I think it’s just, yeah, it’s a bit more succinct to the point as just a through-composed thing that doesn’t repeat. And, yeah, that whole moment where everyone comes in and it’s like the strumming and the tambourine and everything, I feel like it’s… I mean, that’s the last track on the first side, I think… Which I think it’s just like a really tidy way to, just to summarise, the community that I was finding at that point in my transition.
And just, yeah, thinking about being at my friend’s house, Han, who most of the album is actually about. She’s like my best friend, I spent so much of my early transition just in her bed while she was out doing her job or whatever. It’s just like recovering from all the shit I’d been through, and she really held me through that time. She has these really beautiful orange curtains. So I feel like that’s the colour that came through in the song. It’s like the sun through those orange curtains.
L: Oh, that’s gorgeous. That’s really gorgeous. I love that. It’s absolutely, you can feel that warmth of that colour, especially that comes through with it.
J: Yeah, thank you. And yeah, I’m actually like, mid-holiday with Han. I had to come back for an electrolysis process appointment, but we’re currently staying at a caravan in the north of Wales, which is very cute.
I just wanna be,
Best friend’s house
I just wanna be,
In my best friend’s house
L: That’s so cute. That’s very, very sweet. I want to talk about ‘Kitchen’ as well, the opening song to the album. I’d love to dive into that as
J: It’s a very complicated song.
L: Is it?
J: Yeah, no, it is. It’s a nightmare to play. I actually just—
L: Oh! No, absolutely. It’s gorgeous. It’s beautifully done. The fingerpicking is
incredible. And I think it’s also a perfect way to open the album. But yeah, it’s definitely one that I listen to—I don’t envy your fingers.
J: Yeah, no, it is a nightmare. I literally just filmed the guitar tutorial for it in the kitchen of the caravan, cause I thought that was a good setting for it. And it literally took me like an hour just to explain the guitar part. So I’m gonna have to divide it up into like three parts, I think. And then after I’d broken it down in my head. I then couldn’t play it! Because I was thinking about it too consciously for my muscle memory.
L: Yeah, it’s way too much in your mind.
J: Yeah, and I just had to go out for a walk and then come back, and then it was fine. I was like, I’m not gonna be able to play this again, because now I know what the chords are and everything, you know, like consciously. But yeah, no, sorry, was there something specifically that you wanted to ask about that song?
L: I mean, I’m happy for you to just, tangent on it, I have a very silly question that relates to it.
J: Okay, yeah, cool!
L: (Laughs) So I’ve drunk more tea to this specific album than I think I have to any other album that I’ve ever listened to.
J: (Jasmine holds her mug to the camera.) Oh yeah, got my brew right here.
L: And I do want to ask how you have your tea.
J: So I usually use Yorkshire tea. Although when I’ve been in Wales, I always use Welsh tea, which is called Paned, which is really good. And yeah, leave the bag in for five minutes. It has to be boiling. Leave the bag in for five minutes and then give it a good squeeze and then like that much oat milk. Yeah, like a centimetre of oat milk. Yeah. Like three decibels of oat milk.
L: Three decibels of oat milk! Is the required amount of oat milk.
J: Five, maybe.
(It is at this point in the interview that our wonderful correspondent from The Label, Daria, jumps in to let me know we’re beginning to run over time and if that can be the last question. Jasmine says she’s happy to keep going, and so we are allowed two more questions to end our time.)
L: Would love to, in that case, ask a little bit more about ‘Kitchen’. Really beautiful imagery throughout the song of just watching this person, and so, is it the same person from ‘Best Friend’s House’ or is that a different person or like?
J: No, it’s not Han, it’s my first trans lover who I was who I was talking about. So it’s the same person as ‘Skin on Skin’ and ‘Breaking in Reverse’. Wanna look at the… I can tell you what the songs are about.
(Jasmine jumps up from her desk to go and grab a vinyl copy of her album. After a moment, she returns and begins reading through the tracklist.)
Let me just look at the tracklist. Yeah, so ‘Kitchen’, ‘Skin on Skin’, ‘Highfield’, ‘Breaking in Reverse’, and ‘Elephant’ are all about the same person who, yeah, was the first trans person who I fell in love with. Then whilst ‘You Are The Morning’ is about Han, ‘Best Friend’s House’ is about Han, and Yulia. Because yeah, I was staying in both of their houses when I was going through that. ‘Guy Fawkes Tesco Dissociation’ is about Han taking me into Tesco to hide from the fireworks. But it’s kind of at my ex-spouse. That’s who, like, ‘They’ve done this and they still sleep in our room’, is about. ‘Woman’ is also about my ex-spouse, as is ‘New Shoes’.
But you’re right, you’re such a them and I see see you
kitchen
Even now as the kettle boils as you see me through
‘Tall Girl’ is about Han. Han actually wrote a song about a tall boy, that she then revealed seven years later was about me. And I’d always been like, ‘Oh, imagine if that was about me.’ And so I rewrote history and made it about a tall girl instead. ‘Roan’ is about my theyfriend, who I’ve been with for over two years now. Roan is their name. Transition is just bits of woman. That’s it!
L: That’s so cool. I love that. I do love that every song has a very specific key point, or a person in your life or a moment. I think that’s really good and really grounds the album in a very particular and specific way to you.
J: Thank you. Yeah, no, I think that’s kind of how I write is like when I’m just, like, feeling the feels. I try and put them into a song.
L: Absolutely. And then I suppose I’ve got one last question, which is kind of in
relation to ‘Guy Fawkes Tesco Dissociation’, but I suppose the album in general, and also just sorta, music a little bit. But in ‘Guy Fawkes Tesco Dissociation’, you have that incredible belter of a final chorus. And I wanted to ask you, where do you sit on preferring to sing loud or preferring to sing soft? What do you think is more of a sound that speaks to you?
J: I don’t know. I think often trans women are expected to be soft. And I think more of us deserve volume. So I think it’s nice to feel like we’re taking up space in that moment, you know. I guess it’s interesting, I think my voice has already changed since recording the album. Like when I sing live, my voice sounds fuller than I think it did when I was recording the album. I think it’s interesting because I come from a background of shouty punk music and performing when I was like male presenting or whatever. And so, like that’s kind of how I learned to shout, so relearning to shout is a whole thing. But yeah, one that I’m enjoying.
We recently did a version of ‘Toxicity’ by System of a Down that Julian Baker joined us on at South by Southwest. You can check it out, it’s on YouTube.
(I did, it’s sick as hell, check it out)
And that’s really fun, because that’s just shouting all the way through. But I’m hoping to release more shouting. Yeah, because I think this album is less rocky and heavy than I think my other songs are really. And like, my demos are generally quite rocky. So I feel like that’s probably the direction that we’re going in. But I also have a whole bunch of very, very quiet songs, and I have a whole bunch of electronic songs. So I mean, yeah, I guess I do think it kind of depends on who I work with in the future. I really enjoyed collaborating on this record, and there are so many people who I would love to collaborate with. But yeah, I think I would really love to put out some of my more rocky songs.
L: Hell yeah. I very much look forward to hearing them in the future.
J: Awesome. Thank you.
L: This has been really, really cool. It’s been such a pleasure to meet you. And thank you so much for asking these questions, answering these questions. I asked them, you answered them, and they’ve been great answers!
J: Thank you. And yeah, thank you for having me. Have a good, day(?) I guess.
L: I think that I will. I hope you have a fantastic night.
J: Thank you. I think that I will too.
You Are The Morning is available for purchase from places like Bandcamp, and on streaming now.
(Photos supplied. This interview has been edited.)
