Welcome to the working week, rockers! So, I don’t always like to talk about this in my music writing, but it doesn’t take much more than a Google search to find out that I’m an out and proud trans woman. So whenever I see an email come through my inbox about a trans artist who wants to be featured, it always gets my attention. That’s not to say I would ever feature anyone just because they’re trans; they have to actually be someone I’d want to listen to. But today I feel like we have a really special trans artist: jasmine.4.t.
Jasmine.4.t is the solo project of Jasmine Cruickshank, a trans, alt-rock/alt-pop singer-songwriter out of Manchester, U.K. She recently announced their debut album You Are The Morning, which will be coming out on January 17 on Phoebe Bridgers’ label Saddest Factory Records, making them the first U.K. artist to be signed to the label. Alongside the announcement of the album, she released a single and video for the song “Elephant,” which is now streaming on YouTube.
“Elephant” is an unassuming yet beautiful and delicate indie-pop song with light guitars and a gentle beat accentuated by Cruickshank’s powerful vocal performance. It gradually works up to a very energetic ending that gets a tad noisy, making for a perfect catharsis. The video depicts the singer traveling around the city in the rain, creating a sense of deep melancholy. It’s a song about longing and yearning that perfectly conveys those emotions in a truly heartbreaking way.
“I wrote ‘Elephant’ very early in my transition about my first t4t love,” says Cruickshank. “It’s about when it hurts because you’re trying to be friends but you both want to be more. My life in Bristol fell apart when I came out and, having no safe place to live, I was staying on queers’ sofas in Manchester, traumatized and in no place to start a relationship. It was beyond healing recording this track in LA with Phoebe, Lucy, and Julien, along with my Manchester dolls Eden and Phoenix, and with extra layers from local trans musicians Vixen, Bobby, Addy and of course the incredible Trans Chorus of Los Angeles.”
Check out the video below.
Follow jasmine.4.t on Instagram for future updates.
Photo courtesy of Instagram
