jasmine.4.t Shares New Single Featuring Phoebe Bridgers ‘Guy Fawkes Tesco Dissociation’

Singer-songwriter and trans woman jasmine.4.t releases her debut album You Are The Morning via Saddest Factory Records & shares a new video for album standout track 'Guy Fawkes Tesco Dissociation'. Based in Manchester, Jasmine is the first UK signee to Phoebe Bridgers' label and the album was produced by Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus.

On 'Guy Fawkes Tesco Dissociation' Jasmine said "A few years ago, I was sleeping on my best friend Han’s living room floor in Manchester for a few nights. I had come out as trans to my closest people back home in Bristol, my life had fallen apart, my marriage had ended terribly, and I had nowhere to stay. I was struggling with extreme PTSD symptoms and making plans to kill myself. I remember being in Han’s bathtub, crying in the dark and her making me promise not to go through with it. The hallucinations were terrifying. I kept seeing my dead body face-down in a pool of blood on the painted yellow kitchen floor of my home in Bristol. I had a persistent delusion that I had died there and was living some kind of hellish afterlife. Sometimes I would look down and see my own body as a rotting corpse or skeleton. I remember seeing myself and my beloved late uncle (who left me his guitar after he died by suicide) both in miniature, screaming and trapped inside my own ribcage.

Guy Fawkes night was the worst. The stress of the explosions had left my body a wreck, and I thought I was dying of fright. Han took me for a walk so I could see the fireworks — if I could see them maybe the sounds wouldn’t be so terrifying. When we were outside the supermarket someone let off some fireworks on the pavement. They failed to launch and exploded next to us in the road. I blacked out at that point and came to, back at Han’s, when I tripped over the doormat. Apparently we had gone into the supermarket and bought some essentials. I had no memory of it, though when I pushed myself I had some images of fluorescent lights and Han comforting me.

Following this, I started a type of therapy called Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR). Over a period of several months it reduced my symptoms hugely. But, as with most therapy processes, things got worse before they got better. During that time, I experienced some violent transphobic attacks which set me back as well. Through all of this, I was moving from spare room to spare room, writing and demoing songs to help me process what I was going through.

I wrote Guy Fawkes Tesco Dissociation about the experience at the supermarket, and my divorce that was in progress. 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.

It feels so much to be writing this now, in the next chapter I imagined in the second verse. I cried writing this when I remembered the line 'find connection next to true self, something larger than my life', because I am in the brighter future that I could never have foreseen from where I was when I wrote it. I want this story to bring hope to anyone going through what I went through."

About You Are The Morning:

The light still breaks through each morning. That’s the driving sentiment on You Are The Morning, the debut album from trans woman and singer-songwriter jasmine.4.t. For her, queer people represent “a fresh start, new days which are beautiful and cosmic.” The album bursts with moments of love through its fingerpicked guitar, punk bombast, and raw vocal takes.

You Are The Morning was formed amid personal upheaval in 2021. “I came out as trans to my nearest and dearest,” she says, “Some did not accept me, but some did.” Despite the pain of some of its background, the record is an uplifting look at t4t love. Jasmine describes her first trans romance as the first time she experienced joy in a deep sense, because of her experience of living as a woman. “I was acting in a way I identified with, in the world,” she says. “That was the main source of inspiration, plus feelings of love and romance, and that being so heightened by the hormones.”

Jasmine came to the guitar when her late uncle left his instrument to her. “He was a very close member of our family, and used to pick us up from school every day,” she says. “I'm autistic. I hyper-focused on guitar. It became my special interest for a long time.”

Soon, she was playing her heroes’ songs from guitar books - but writing and playing have always gone hand-in-hand. “It typically starts with me crying into my phone as a voice memo,” she says. “I transcribe whatever I've come up with and write everything down as a stream of consciousness.”

First single 'Skin On Skin' explores the new joy of physical touch. Usually a quick writer, it’s a rare song that grew over time. “I was still married at the time, though we’d taken a six-month break to have no contact and to see other people,” she says. “In that period, I was struggling with PTSD and didn’t think it was a good idea to be starting another relationship.” During this time, a close connection with a friend began to form. “Sticking to the physical boundaries we wanted to have with each other became increasingly difficult. We were spending lots of time together, then falling in love. This song became a celebration of healing and physical catharsis found through unrepressed queer love.” The song captures the instant rush of those feelings, as well as the complex ways that past experiences can be reshaped by the present, now that Jasmine’s ideas of love and connection have changed.

The first UK signee on Saddest Factory Records, the album was produced by Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus. Jasmine and her band traveled to L.A. to record at Sound City Studios. It was made across 12 days in a highly collaborative and emotional process, and because Jasmine sees her songs as fluid and ever-changing, the recordings carry that free and spontaneous spirit.

jasmine.4.t is supported by an all-trans band, who’ve helped each other through the stress of touring while trans. Phoenix Rousiamanis contributes piano and strings, with Eden O’Brien on drums and Emily Abbott on bass. With Jasmine’s voice and songwriting at the center, the record incorporates a wider cast of voices. 'Best Friend's House’ features a chorus including her bandmates, Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus (“the girls and the boys”), Saddest Factory Records label-mate Claud, Becca Mancari and E.R. Fightmaster. The song carries the communal spirit of the record’s creation.

On the title track, Jasmine’s fingerpicked guitar is paired with strings that bring the breezy lightness of being in safe company. Lyrically, she describes belonging and connection with a brilliant bareness: ‘you still want me around, you make you feel okay’.

'New Shoes', the oldest song here, was originally made for Jasmine’s ex-spouse. “It's a very optimistic song, but it also highlights some of the problems apparent early in our relationship,” she says. She remembers lying on the floor in the studio with her bandmate Eden, as Phoenix recorded the piano part. “In this context, it shows how much of a fallacy soulmate-hood is, but then how real chosen family is.”

On the closing track, 'Woman', she is backed by the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles, a cross-generational group of trans singers who, like Jasmine, use their voice as a source of communal power. The song blossoms from solo performance to wider group catharsis. All the while, Jasmine sings unwaveringly about the power of knowing yourself at a core level: “I am, in my soul, a woman”.

For jasmine.4.t, activism and performance are closely linked. “Just giving a trans woman a microphone shouldn't be taken lightly. I will use that opportunity to talk about the issues we face,” she says. Using her platform, she continues to raise funds and awareness for Trans Mutual Aid Manchester, an organization that she has volunteered for which “has been very active in my friendship group and community, and has helped a lot of us out. It feels really good to give back to them.”

The writing of You Are The Morning pulled from dark moments to tell its story. Surrounded by friends, the recording process was full of light. Through her performances, activism and artistry, jasmine.4.t is ushering in a new dawn.

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