jasmine.4.t. is the moniker of Manchester-based singer-songwriter Jasmine Cruickshank, who started playing guitar after her late uncle passed down his instrument to her. She cut her teeth playing in punk and garage rock bands, self-releasing music via Breakfast Records, the label she co-founded with friends in Bristol, which put out her debut EP, Worn Through, in 2019. One day, she got a message from Lucy Dacus inviting her to be an opener on her Historian tour in Europe; now that Dacus is preparing to tour its follow-up, she’ll be supporting her again. During the pandemic, facing complications from myalgic encephalomyelitis and long COVID, Cruickshank underwent heart surgery and was bed-bound for almost half a year. It was then that she decided to come out as trans, end her abusive marriage, and escape to Manchester, where she found – and was able to write through – her queer community. Backed by an all-trans band, jasmine.4.t. became the first UK signee to Phoebe Bridgers’ label Saddest Factory Records, and Bridgers, Dacus, and their boygenius bandmate Julien Baker all produced her remarkable debut full-length, You Are the Morning. Treading the line between intricate, tender-hearted folk and stormy indie rock, the album swoons with the rush of new love, spins catharsis out of the wildest lows, and reimagines the past into a light-filled future. It’s in the throes of hope and change, Cruickshank reminds us, that we see each other best.
We caught up with jasmine.4.t. for the latest edition of our Artist Spotlight series to talk about when she started writing songs, the making of her debut album, working with boygenius, and more.
Do you feel like people are taking in the record as a whole, and as its own journey, differently than the individual songs you’d been rolling out?
Yeah, and it’s really interesting to hear people’s interpretations of the whole thing. A lot of people understand it to be a coherent kind of story, and a chronological one, which it’s not – the order was very much based on the feel of the songs and how each side of the record kind of rides out. That was actually down to Lucy, mostly. Lucy is the mastermind behind the track listing. She had this massive whiteboard in the studio with each of the tracks and each of the instruments as columns. It was this big table, and she filled in each one with little notes and stuff. She’s very organized like that; she’s famous for keeping an extensive Google Drive of everything.
I feel like the singles that came out were a really good representation, and that’s why we chose them. We wanted the singles to each make a statement. For example, one of the contenders for the first single was ‘Breaking in Reverse’, which is a really lovely song about queer healing. But for me, it was like, “This is too much of a tame love song.” I love that song and I’m proud of it, but it doesn’t say what ‘Skin on Skin’ says. ‘Skin on Skin’ very explicitly expresses that this is about trans people having sex; it’s about that healing experience, experiencing physical trans love for the first time. There aren’t any other songs out there that do that in the same way, as far as I know, and that’s why we chose it to be the first single. The response to that was phenomenal – trans people from all over the world being like, “You’ve nailed this in a way that I haven’t experienced before.” That was really what we were trying to do, so that was incredible. But I think the way people are now reacting to the individual songs and the album as a whole is quite different. It feels like it’s being perceived as an entire body representing healing and hope, which is what it is, rather than these individual snapshots.
People have been interpreting the songs in such amazing ways, seeing things I had never seen before. For example, ‘New Shoes’ was originally written about my then-spouse in 2012, at the beginning of that relationship, maybe 2013, and then it was released in late 2019 on my debut EP when we were married. I re-recorded it in this new setting, and when I was singing it, I was trying to sing it about my chosen family, and it’s wonderful that people have interpreted it that way. But also, some people have interpreted it as being about transition and seeing things in yourself that you haven’t seen before. That’s “the light I have seen,” you know? That wasn’t at all what I wrote the song about, but now I’m wondering, was it? Was I just writing a song about being trans without realizing it? And I was, ultimately, I think. The mental health issues I had at the time were very much associated with my experiences of dysphoria, and those were things that were very deeply repressed. I tried to come out as a teenager, and I failed, and I kind of just forgot about it for that whole period.
It’s really interesting to hear about how the track listing came out about, because I think especially the run from ‘Skin on Skin’ to ‘Breaking in Reverse’, and then ‘New Shoes’ to ‘Elephant’, really affects the resonance of these songs.
Yes, fully. I’m so glad that Lucy did those things, because that’s something I would never have thought of. Also, the idea of splitting it into sides – growing up with CDs, I kind of considered the entire arc of the record as a whole. But Lucy’s approach, and Phoebe was a big part of that as well, deciding to end the first side with ‘Best Friend’s House’ and start the second side with ‘Guy Fawkes Tesco Dissociation’. What I find quite interesting there is the use of the discontinuity of flipping the record over and how that feels symbolic in that context. because I was staying at my best friend’s house, at Han’s house, while writing this song about feeling disconnected at Tesco. There are just so many things you can pick out from that.
I really love how ‘Roan’ is framed on the record as well. A lot of this record is about my first trans relationship, but after that ended, I met Roan, who is one of my current partners, and we’ve been together for two years now. This record actually came out on zer birthday, so it was kind of a birthday gift on the DL. That was also a re-recording of a demo I made, but we reused the original synths from the demo. We just pitched them up because my voice has changed so much since then. The way that is sat in the sequencing as well makes that moment feel incredibly healing and really emotional.
In a statement you shared about ‘Guy Fawkes Tesco Dissociation’, you mentioned a persistent vision you were having of yourself and your late uncle in miniature. I know you were really young when he passed, but do you trace your relationship with music back to him?
Yeah, fully. He was a huge Black Sabbath fan, and I am too.
I mean, you’re wearing an Iron Maiden T-shirt.
[laughs] Yeah. When I opened for Lucy in Birmingham on the Historian album tour, we did a cover of ‘Paranoid’. I feel like I wouldn’t have done that if it weren’t for him, and I wouldn’t have gotten into hard rock and probably punk. Maybe, I don’t know – I feel like a huge part of my getting into punk was probably because of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, to be honest, as it is for a lot of trans girls. But ultimately, that experience of losing him was devastating for me and my family, obviously, and the circumstances surrounding that were horrendous. And I think it had a huge effect on my relationship with mortality.
When I tried to come out as a teenager, when I started experiencing dysphoria around puberty, I was suicidal at that time. I was thinking a lot about my uncle, and part of the therapy I did recently in healing from these experiences, the EMDR therapy – I think I talked about it in the press release – was about visualizing, because I was having these hallucinations at the time. Part of reprocessing the horrors of losing my uncle in such a terrible way involved visualizing how I would interact with him as an adult now. I imagined taking him to the local gay bar, just hanging out and chatting, and that was just imagining him in good spirits, like I remember him. That’s the therapy I’m singing about in the second verse of ‘Tesco’. He’s definitely an important part of why I make music, but also an important part of the music I’ve been making.
Is that when you started writing songs?
Yeah, definitely. I’ve written songs my whole life, and the first song I ever wrote was very shortly after my uncle died. It was just a very sad song about someone leaving you. I think it would have been an emo pop banger had I written it properly. [laughs] I wrote a lot of songs heavily inspired by Elliott Smith all the way through my childhood, or teenage years, really. II heard Basement on a Hill, which my dad’s friend introduced me to. I wrote a lot more punky stuff, and I recorded an album of Daniel Johnston covers. I got really into Jeffrey Lewis for a bit, and I was playing in punk bands. I was in a band called Gnarwhals. We started off just doing covers of songs from the Tony Hawk soundtrack at friends’ parties, and we were sort of locally popular in Bristol.
That was a very different thread, but with my more personal songwriting, I had a few other projects where I collaborated with my Breakfast Records friends. We had a garage rock project called Human Bones. I was also very inspired by others in the Bristol scene, especially SLONK, Joe Sherrin, who is a phenomenal and prolific songwriter. I definitely recommend checking out Songs About Tanks, which is my favorite of his albums. I played violin on that – my violin kind of sucks, to be honest, but it’s an incredible record. Then, through uni, I was really into Big Thief and Adrianne Lenker’s solo stuff. I got really sick of uni, and I was listening to a lot of Adrianne Lenker and writing a lot in that vein, more folky stuff. I got really into fingerstyle guitar playing and listened to classic folk guitarists like Davey Graham. There’s this contemporary Appalachian folk singer named Sam Amidan, who I’m a huge fan of, and through him, the rest of the Bedroom Community label. Recently, I’ve just been drawing a lot on Elliott and Adrinne, not really thinking too much consciously about genre or style, and just writing.
My collaborator, Phoenix, is an incredible composer. She wrote an opera called Songs of Descent, which retells the story of Persephone descending into hell, but through a trans lens. It’s about dysphoria, and it’s just incredible. Phoenix and I have been working together on writing and demoing recently – since recording, actually, and we’ve just been doing projects here in my bedroom. It’s been really rad. We recently recorded a demo that I sent to Phoebe, which she loved, so hopefully that will be on a future record. It’s a lot more eclectic; she draws a lot of influence from electronic and classical music, and those are things I don’t typically draw on. There are moments that are very different from what was on this album. When I was in LA, too, I was writing constantly while recording this record. I wrote an EP of heartbreak songs from the roof of the studio – I was just going there between takes. It had a really beautiful view of the sunset and the train tracks. I ended up writing five songs while I was out there, and they’re all kind of grunge because that’s how I demoed them. I sent those demos to everyone who helped out on the record, including the boys.
I don’t really know why I’m monologuing so long; I guess I’m trying to classify my songwriting genres. But I’ve been writing so much recently – since transitioning, really. I haven’t really stopped. I do think that coming out and accepting myself – I guess I mean cracking my egg, coming out to myself, being unrepressed in my identity – has really helped me not be repressed in terms of my writing as well. I think people have picked up on that in their responses to the album, too.
I love the more ornate and orchestrated moments on the album, so I’m excited to hear what comes out of your ongoing collaboration with Phoenix. I will say, in terms of personal songwriting, going from Elliott Smith to Adrianne Lenker does feel like a full-circle moment.
Yeah, definitely. My girlfriend and I recently watched this interview where Elliott is just sitting in a café, and the interviewer asks him how it feels to write about these very personal moments. I think he mentions Iron Maiden – like, even Iron Maiden, when they’re singing about shouting at the devil, it’s still very personal for them. [laughs] I love that. But I feel like it’s easier to interpret things as personal when you’re not shouting at the devil. There’s so much weird Elliott lore woven into this record as well. Have you watched Strange Parallel?
I haven’t.
It’s this – I want to say documentary, but it’s almost like a mockumentary that he co-created. The story is that the label wanted to make a documentary about him, but he wasn’t playing along nicely – they sent some filmmakers to go make this documentary, and he just kept giving them the wrong address. This is all in the documentary. When they finally caught up with him, he said, “I don’t want to make a documentary – can we just make a video about my dreams?” He came back the next day with these crazy ideas he had in his dreams about, like, the label trying to make him replace his hand with a robot hand so he could play guitar better. That was actually going to be in the music video for ‘Elephant’ originally. Harv, who’s this incredible director, a trans girl, directed the music videos for ‘Elephant’ and ‘Tesco’. She created an entire robot suit, including an amazing robot hand, which was all made out of cardboard, but it was raining on the day, so we couldn’t use it. I’m really hoping at some point in the future it will get used, because she put so much time into that. That was all going to be a reference to Strange Parallel. Niche lore for you there!
I know this record went through several stages; one of the songs even dates back to the Worn Through EP. Was there a moment or period of time where the album really came to life for you?
When I’m writing songs, I’m not thinking, “Oh, what record is this going to be on?” I think it kind of happened when – let me see if I can find the screenshots. I recently went back through my messages with Joe Sherrin, who I mentioned earlier. So, this was on the 17th of June 2022. I sent Joe a demo of ‘Tesco’, and his response was, Oh, fuck yes baby! Now that’s what I call a chorus! You should ask Lucy to see if Phoebe Bridgers will release it on her label. You’ve got so many bangers now, bitch.” [laughs] And I said, Hihi thanks angel, maybe I will. And he said, Worth a bloody punt 🙂. I think that was the moment.
Obviously, there ceased to be a “maybe” at one point.
Well, I had 30 songs, starting with ‘Woman’, which I wrote immediately after coming out to my then-spouse. Until that moment, I had 30 songs, and I didn’t really want to go back before then because they didn’t feel so relevant. Obviously, Lucy talked me into doing ‘New Shoes’ again. So, my friend Octavia – who’s another trans singer-songwriter from Manchester, she’s awesome – and another friend of mine, Cleo – who co-founded the Just Do the Thing trans meet-up in Manchester, which is where I met Eden O’Brien and Emily Abbott – helped me whittle it down from 30 tracks to about 10. Of those, Lucy played four tracks for Phoebe: ‘Elephant’, ‘Tesco’, ‘You Are the Morning’, and ‘Woman’.
After it was decided that Lucy, Phoebe, and Julien were all going to be producing, they wanted to have a say in the tracklist as well. Obviously, they would put whatever I wanted first, but they were interested in hearing some other demos. So I sent over the full list of my back catalog up to that point. There were a few songs that didn’t make the album that we were hoping to record in the sessions as well, but we ran out of time. Those include a song called ‘Did You Know’, a song called ‘Find Your People’, and ‘Daffodil Cup’, which is a reference to a cup I have on my desk somewhere, but I can’t see it right now. [laughs] Those three songs were going to be on the album, but we only had 12 days – it’s pretty mad that we managed to record a song per day for those 12 days. That’s kind of how the album took shape from a loose collection of songs.
A loose collecton of songs, many of which started out as voice memos. I’d love for you to talk about some of the most surprising or magical parts of having a group of people – be it your live band, boygenius, or the Trans Chorus of LA – interpret and build upon the songs.
I think the main one is how Lucy edited the title track, ‘You Are the Morning’. The original demo is so long, like 7 minutes, which is ridiculous. Lucy did an incredible job of saying, “You don’t need to re-sing that part.” What I think is so genius about what she did with that song is that she took the last two verses, and there used to be choruses in between there – it’s got such a weird structure, right? It goes: chorus, verse, chorus, two middle eight sections, and then verse, solo, verse. I’ve never heard of a song like that before, but it just has this beautiful symmetry. My favorite thing about the way Lucy created this structure is that final verse/solo/verse, because there’s so much meaning packed into those verses. I had created that meaning, but the way Lucy condensed it into just two verses is really beautiful.
It’s talking about leaving, and when I was writing it, I was contemplating suicide – the lyrics say, “Now, my time here has been undone/ Just know I’m glad I’ve been the one/ To hold you through the darkest night/ To see you in the morning light.” But over the course of the solo, the other path is followed, and it’s ike, “And if I stay, if just for one more year/ To place your hair behind your ear/ To stroke your wrist from left to right/ As you hold me in the morning light.” It’s almost like these two roads. I just find the way that whole song is really nicely symmetric very incredible, and I think that’s 90% Lucy’s contribution.
There are a few moments, like in ‘Highfield’ and ‘Breaking in Reverse’, where all the boys were recording their vocals together. I think they kind of had ideas going into the live room that they had discussed beforehand, but it was basically improvised. And just watching them live, improvising these three-part harmonies as a hive mind was fucking incredible. I have this really cool video that I’ll probably post at some point because it’s an amazing moment: Julien just stops everyone and says, “You know what? I think I should just go down chromatically at that point.” And everyone was like, “Fuck yeah!” [laughs] And then they just start again, and Julien did this beautiful stepwise chromaticism. The way they all knew what that was going to go do, and are so enmeshed, was so satisfying to see.
That was at the end of ‘Breaking in Reverse’, and it was recorded on the final day. It was the final thing we did on the final day. We’d recorded the choir, and the choir had left, and we were like, “What can we do with these last few hours?” We were just riffing so hard at that point. We had been through this boot camp recording session and got to know each other really well, and we were just so happy and comfortable in each other’s presence. It was completely mad, but it was so fun collaborating with those guys. Honestly, it’s just a dream come true.
Had you been a longtime fan?
I didn’t really know who Julien was until I saw them at the End of the Road festival. It was such a life-changing moment for me, honestly. There was so much going on there [laughs] in terms of my internal, repressed queer identity. I was on stage with Lucy, I was playing banjo. We did a cover of Alex G’s song ‘Bobby’ together as a secret set, which was really cool. That was the first time I met Julien. Just seeing them perform felt… it’s being faced with the sun from the planet Mercury. It just feels like this ball of energy right in front of your face. It’s like, how is so much energy coming out of one person? So much raw emotion, so much virtuosic guitar playing. And to have that on my record now, so many years later, post-transition, after that being a major part of my journey to come to terms with my own gender identity and sexuality – it’s just nuts. It’s really nuts.
We worked out recently as well that the first time I saw Phoebe was at The Thekla in Bristol, the year after Stranger in the Alps came out, which was 2018. The stage is on the hall of a boat, which is really cool. Lucy, who I was on tour with at the time, took me to see Phoebe’s show. Lucy got on stage with Phoebe and sang ‘Me and My Dog’, and that was such a jaw-dropping moment, seeing these incredible musicians gel in that way. And now, being able to say, “I did that too. I made music with those people.” I’m such a huge fan of them. When boygenius’s record came out, I listened to it on repeat, obviously. And now, my record sounds very much like it’s produced by boygenius; you can really hear them. Being part of that canon is such an honor for me.
Circling back to ‘New Shoes’, of all the things that transformed from the EP version to this one, one detail that strikes me is the resonance of the word “you” – with Lucy’s voice in the mix, with the audience on the other end. How does that ring out to you now that the record has been released?
I think this is something that Paste Magazine brought my attention to as well, but it was actually in the context of ‘Elephant’. I realized that I’m no longer really singing the songs about what I wrote them about. For example, with ‘Elephant’. there’s this bit: “Look at this, it’s all for you.” When I wrote that, I’m dolling myself up, doing my nails and makeup for “you”: my first trans crush. But when we performed that in the studio, it felt like “Look at this” was saying, “Look at what we’ve created here. Look at this moment in history.” And “it’s all for you” being the listener, a queer person, or a trans woman just coming to terms with her identity. That’s what it felt like, and that’s what it feels like when I sing it as well. When I sing ‘You Are the Morning’, I’m very much singing about my audience and the hope I want my audience to have.
And then, ‘New Shoes’ – that’s one that really hurt to sing. When I wrote it, it was about the relationship that became my marriage. When Lucy asked me to put it on the record, I initially sas like, “No fucking way.” But after thinking about it for a while, I realized this could be a song about my chosen family. I spoke about it with my chosen sister, Bola, who I live with, and I decided to go for it because I could sing it about that, right? But in the studio, on the day, I just couldn’t. I kept having these images of my dog that I lost in the divorce, and that’s what I was crying about when I was trying to sing it. I don’t think I could ever sing that live. I cry on stage all the time anyway, and it would be so difficult for me to do that. But I do feel that when I listen to it now, it is about chosen family and queer family. I think there is that implication that “you” is the listener there. We’re talking about this incredible connection we’re making through the music, but also, we’re talking about the network of solidarity that queer people have worldwide.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
jasmine.4.t.’s You Are the Morning is out now via Saddest Factory Records.