If there’s one music trend that stood out to us this year, it’s that queer yearning is in — and in her newest single, U.K. singer-songwriter jasmine.4.t is demonstrating that trans women can yearn with the best of them.
With a stage name alluding to the iconic “trans for trans” shorthand, jasmine.4.t (a.k.a. Jasmine Cruikshank) today announced her debut full-length album You Are the Morning, featuring an all-trans backing band and production by Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus, better known as boygenius. In advance of the full album’s release January 17, 2025, jasmine.4.t also released a new single: “Elephant,” a driven yet spacey indie rock tune that features Baker on lead guitar and a special performance by the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles.
"I wrote ‘Elephant’ very early in my transition about my first t4t love,” Cruikshank explained in a press release accompanying the single. “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.”
Cruikshank also extended her gratitude to boygenius. “It was beyond healing recording this track in L.A. 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,” she added.
Bridgers signed Cruikshank to her label Saddest Factory in July this year, releasing the single “Skin on Skin” and making her the label’s first U.K. artist. Obviously, boygenius stans will want to mark their calendars immediately, but Cruikshank’s partnership with the trio is far from the only reason to check out jasmine.4.t.
Part of what’s striking about “Elephant” are the elements that shouldn’t work, but do. The song is constructed from a series of iterations upon a simple melody, extended over four minutes, and Cruikshank’s vocals are occasionally pitchy or wavering. But none of that detracts from the song or reveals flaws in her technique; rather, it conveys her vulnerability, a window into the truth that would be lost in a more heavily produced version. By the time the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles joins in, accompanying Cruikshank in her two-line refrain (“Look at this / it’s all for you / the elephant is in the room”), it’s hard for anyone who’s experienced a similarly fraught first love not to reflect on their own lives and the events that brought them there.
In songs like “Elephant” and the sensuality-celebrating “Skin on Skin,” You Are the Morning as a whole chronicles the highs and lows of Cruikshank’s experiences immediately after coming out as transgender in 2021. Trans love and community, she said this week, represent to her “a fresh start, new days which are beautiful and cosmic.” Now that’s something to keep yearning for.
You Are the Morning is out January 17, 2025 via Saddest Factory Records.
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