No Joy and 10 Questions with TotalNtertainment.
No Joy has the relentless sonic permutations that are evidence of front person and principal songwriter Jasamine White-Gluz’s insatiable desire to grow. We got to chat with her about the album and more.
1. It’s been five years since your last album, what was the reason for this gap ?
I wanted to understand what direction I wanted to go on the next full length album. I released 3 EPs in that time, each one collaborating with different people and each differently sonically. This helped me work through ideas and things I wanted to try before it was time to piece together a bigger production for a full length. I also started working more with visual artists, such as Jodi Heartz, who has guided me tremendously on creating a visual narrative on this new album.
2. During that time you ditched guitar in favour of a more electronica-based approach. What prompted that change? and what challenges did you have to overcome from the change ?
Guitar is not ditched! Guitar will never be ditched! I just introduced more instruments into the creative process since I get bored easily and want to try new things.
3. What challenges did you have to overcome from the change and how did it change the writing process for the new record?
The songs on Motherhood all began with guitar and vocals, we built on them from there. Some things that might sound electronic are actually organic in a way. For example a lot of our drum samples we built from sounds we made in the studio like from squishing a banana or a coffee grinder or things like that.
4. Was there a particular artist/album that inspired this move and how did it change your approach to write music ?
Jorge Elbrecht has always been my favorite person to write with. This album was exclusively him and I in the writing stages. He is such a brilliant writer and producer, we were really pushing ourselves to write songs that were really different than anything else we’d ever done together. I was also very inspired by a lot of the music that came out in the late 90s, specifically around 1998. There was such great experimental music coming out that couldn’t really be categorized into one genre.
5. Onto the new record thing, what can fans expect from the record ?
New music, same lame jokes. And I share lyrics now.
6. You’ve said that if people are open-minded about music they can hear different things. What would you say is the best setting to fully appreciate the album ?
It is incredibly predictable of me to say, but I think these songs sound best on vinyl or on the high quality digital download. The online services compress the sound in a way. These songs are really maximalist, there is alot going on and to fully appreciate every sound I think you need to hear them on the highest possible quality source.
7. Given the diversity of your music, if we looked down your personal Spotify playlist what sort of thing would we find on it ?
I tend to listen to the same song or album on a loop so there probably would be a million listens on each song I have on there. So maybe my own listening habits aren’t that diverse musically? In terms of the style of music I’m sure it’s all over the map though, I listen to a lot of talk radio too, like AM dial stuff.
8. Could you tell us a bit about what inspired the title of the record “Motherhood”?
Throughout these songs I was exploring the concept of Motherhood – what makes a mother, fertility, family, aging – both from a personal and a general point of view. Motherhood just seemed to be the word that encompassed most of what I was speaking about on the album.
9. Just for fun: Helium makes you talk funny and laughing gas makes people giggle, what other kinds of gases do you wish existed?
How about a gas that can suck up all of COVID and make it go away and make everyone healthy.
10. Thanks for your time, the album is due out, what does the rest of 2020/2021 hold in store for No Joy ?
Probably stuck in quarantine, but who knows there may be some more surprises before this year is over 🙂 I would say to stay tuned as there are some pretty unexpected things coming up. Even with touring off the table for the next while, there will be some performances and cool things I’m excited about.
The album is out the 21st August, read more about it here: https://www.totalntertainment.com/music/no-joy-new-album-motherhood-out-21st-august/
