Album Review: jasmine.4.t - 'You Are The Morning'
A voice of strength, love, courage and acceptance, Manchester singer-songwriter jasmine.4.t has finally made the leap of her career with the release of her debut record, You Are The Morning.
With the support of her new label Saddest Factory Records, including the widely known and greatly loved Phoebe Bridgers, this female powerhouse has been given the chance to compile her lifetime’s thoughts, feelings and personal experiences and bring them to a worldwide audience. The key to jasmine.4.t’s success is her ability to pick up a guitar and pair its beautiful strings with every emotion that has played a part in her life. Her first single from the record, ‘Skin on Skin’ is an example of this.
‘Skin on Skin’ is a soft-rock track about feeling fully comfortable and eased by the physical intimacy of another person. Inspired by the singer’s experiences with finding new senses of excitement amid the ending of her previous marriage, it’s a sweet ode to loving others once achieving loving oneself first and foremost.
The trick to jasmine.4.t’s music, the one that has made her such an underground icon in her local community and around the UK, is that she takes the everyday and puts it into melodies that makes it digestible; whether the topics are positive or negative, her style of songwriting aims to just normalise said topics. ‘Breaking in Reverse’ is all about Jasmine’s innermost feelings, set to a soft indie rhythm, as she and her lyric-based partner are learning to love again. She described the interactions between herself and this love interest as “two hearts breaking in reverse”. A process of healing together rather than hurting separately, through humdrum daily activities such as talking about their days and asking about dinner plans.
Jasmine’s viewpoint on life in her art is admirable, uplifting, and most importantly, inspirational for those who just want to live, love and be happy. As simple as that.
The closing track is one of the most personal on jasmine.4.t’s record, simply titled ‘Woman’. The song sends shivers down the spine as the singer-songwriter spends the two-and-a-half minute long track softly singing about her experience as a woman, and how “I am, in my soul, a woman”. Building from a solo voice to a smooth soulful choir, with the help of the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles, it completes the record representing that sense of unity and strength in numbers that has helped many like Jasmine over these recent times. Times where the transgender community are losing rights, and many are losing their families, friends or lives. Times where all some members of the community have is each other and themselves at the same time. Jasmine has taken a short personal affirmation and made it a greater-scale piece to show the trans community around her and beyond her reach that they are always there for each other, and that will never change.
For a first full-length effort, jasmine.4.t as a project has been compacted in a way that has shown off her life and times in the right balance. No song too long, no guitar solo out of place. A perfect way to put across a not-so-perfect life so that everyone can hear it, see it, and feel it.
Words by Jo Cosgrove
