No Joy on Country Living, Working with Fire-Toolz, and the Hopefulness of Bugs

This is a free post from Larry Fitzmaurice's Last Donut of the Night newsletter. Paid subscribers get one or two email-only Baker's Dozens every week featuring music I've been listening to and some critical observations around it.

Wherever music zigs, Jasamine White-Gluz is often zagging—and her latest record under the No Joy banner, the color-stuffed and head-spinning Bugland, is nothing but zags. I of course mean that as a compliment, as I've always found No Joy's presence in contemporary indie rock to largely stand against whatever trends are going on at the time; with Bugland, Jasamine is truly operating on her own level, with a few collaborators—most notably Fire-Toolz' Angel Marcloid, who co-produced the record along with Jasamine—adding tons of idiosyncrasies that make for a really fascinating listen. I hopped on a call with Jasamine back in June to talk about all things Bugland as well as how she sees her place in music at large right now, it was a really fascinating chat where we both had a lot of laughs. Check it out:

You moved from Montreal to Quebec five years ago. Tell me about decamping to the countryside after living in the city.
I'll say that it wasn't planned. Some circumstances led to having to leave the city and the place I was living. But it feels really normal. This is definitely more my speed. I miss the city, but I really like waking up with the birds. And, honestly, I'm pretty close to the city—an hour away—so I go in all the time.

What is something you don't miss about the city?
I feel like I had underlying anxiety all the time when I was there. It's hard to find quiet, and the quiet that you have in the city isn't a real quiet. I only got to experience what quiet actually was once I got out here. I don't miss that nonstop chaos. I appreciated it at the time, but I'm happy to never have to hopefully live with it again.

You've said that the move influenced this new record. Talk to me about that.
I was actually able to create stuff while noticing leaves, plants, and bugs. I was paying attention to little things that, honestly, probably were around me in the city—but not to the extent they are now. I'd be like, "I wonder what this flower sounds like. I wonder what this tree would sound like if it was a metal band." Things like that were coming into my head, and it was so separate from any kind of musical scene. I also hadn't toured in a long time—I was very removed—so it gave me a reset in every way possible to start over and see things a little differently.

It's interesting to hear you talk about being separated from a musical scene. In general, you always seem like you're just doing your own thing. Talk to me about following your own creative arrow.
I never want to do the same thing twice. I get pretty bored, I guess. I always want to be challenged. I always think that if I'm confused by something and it makes no sense to me, then it's worth pursuing. I don't want to do something that comes easy. I always want to challenge myself sonically and production-wise.

I also really don't want to be referential. When we started, of course, we had production and music references that we were citing, but looking backwards and trying to fit a mold...what's the point? If it's already been done, like then you're really good at sounding like another band—which is okay, but that's not really why I make music. And you know what? I probably would be way more popular if I did do that. I know that the stuff I make is not necessarily super-accessible sometimes.

But I can say that everything I've done, I've done because I wanted to challenge what I was doing—and that's why I was intrigued to work with Angel. I was like, "Something crazy is happening here, and I think it could work with what I'm envisioning for another record." My favorite artists are always ones that are doing their own thing or have a singular sound, style, or vision. Even if it changes record-to-record, they're always just doing their own thing, and even if I don't like everything they put out, I still respect the fact that they're pushing the boundaries of what they do.

Talk to me more about bringing Angel into the mix. I had her on the newsletter a few years ago, and I love what she does. It makes so much sense to hear you guys work together—I feel like you guys could've made several albums together at this point.
As far technical ability, she's mesmerizing. Whenever I work with somebody, I always like the other collaborator to just go wild—no restrictions, do whatever you think and we'll glue it all together. We weirdly have the same taste in everything, and we were always on the same page.

Her music, when I first heard it, reminded me a lot of when I first started working with Jorge Elbrecht and I heard Lansing-Dreiden. I was like, "What is going on? This is produced so crazy, but it's so poppy, aggressive, and complex." So I reached out to Angel and was like, "Do you want to try working on this song that I can't seem to finish? I feel like you could bring some ideas to it." "Bugland" was the first track we did together, and after I heard that, I was like, "Oh shit, okay, I think we should do a record."

You mentioned the notion of what you do being not entirely accessible, but in the randomness of the landscape these days, it does seem like people can find new audiences, albeit almost entirely by accident. I was just reading a recent installment of Chris Richards' newsletter where he surmised that a Tim Hecker concert he attended was packed because of people discovering his work through ambient playlists. Has that been something you've experienced in the last five or six years?
I take gaps in between record releases, and every time I put out a record the entire industry has completely changed. I put out Motherhood during COVID, so it was a very different landscape for releasing records. I don't know if it was the fact that it came out when a lot of other people were holding off on releases, but it managed to find an audience somewhat. I couldn't tour, so that was kind of surprising.

I feel like all I've heard about for the last two years was TikTok shoegaze. It is cool to to have it be sort of organic in a way that, if people end up willing to buy tickets and go to a Tim Hecker show, I don't think it's viral marketing—it's real people, which is cool. I don't know. Every time I put out a record, it's a whole different thing where I try and understand what's going on, and now I've abandoned trying to understand anything and I just hope for the best.

I do think there is a tendency from music press types, when stuff blows up on TikTok, to scratch their heads and be like, "Well, this is manufactured." I say this as somebody who writes about music, but your typical music writer's version of finding the the cure for cancer is turning someone on to Cocteau Twins—and that functionality of the job is basically gone now. I think some people find that disheartening, but it is interesting.
That's like the debate about AI taking over for artists or whatever. I still think music press has a role, but it is fascinating, because it ebbs and flows and expands and it's hard to keep up. I honestly think no one understands anything. Some people can speak about it convincingly, but the music industry is in such flux that it makes so little sense that you just gotta roll with it.

Tell me more about how you think things have changed. There's some very clear benchmarks in terms of how things have shifted, but, like, when I first saw No Joy live it was at CMJ, which doesn't exist anymore like at all. That was only 15 years ago, but it feels like forever ago at this point. You started gaining a profile in the beginning of a faux-imperial era for left-of-center indie music, and obviously there's been several eras since where it's been very boom-to-bust.
Yeah, there were the days of the Scion-sponsored parties where you'd play a festival and come back with a whole new wardrobe and 10 pairs of shoes, and then there was the era of brands paying you a lot of money to play shows but you don't even have to tell anybody you're playing them—and then there was the flip side, where you could essentially tour for eight months of the year, playing tiny venues, and still make it work.

One thing that has shifted so much is the need for content non-stop. You gotta document everything, you gotta use everything, you gotta show everything. When we started, our press pictures didn't even have a face in them. We didn't want anybody to know who we were, and we were able to get some press and tours and things without giving too much away. But now it's harder not to play that game of engaging so much.

Streaming, obviously, sucks because you're making no money. You're not selling records as much as you were, t's harder to stay on the road, it's harder for venues to stay open. For support slots, the dollar number hasn't changed in 15 years—across the board, not just specifically for me. Some things are the same and maybe should've changed, and other things have shifted so dramatically. The same things have affected everybody—touring for a really long time isn't super sustainable, and making your own records is...as far as funding records, I benefit from getting grants here in Canada, so that has been an amazing help.

But you're still expected to do all the things you were doing previously, for less money. Or you need to be like, "Hey, I have this many followers, and I can engage your brand this many ways." Whereas I feel like some brands before were just trying to buy cool points and just like sponsor a warehouse show somewhere. There's probably people still doing that, but way less.

Do you have a full-time job?
I've had the same profession since I started No Joy, because I was so pretentious that I was like, "I only want to play cool stuff, so I'm gonna say no to stuff," because when music is your full-time job, it's really hard to say no to stuff when that's your income. So I work as a manager for fashion models. I've done that at the current company I'm at for the last nine years and was in the industry for about 10 before that.

I've always kept a job on the side just so I have the flexibility to say, "I don't want to play that corporate event even if it pays really well—I think it's stupid." Also, I want to be able to have a little bit of a cushion when we're touring if the van breaks down or we want to make more merch. But I also fully acknowledge that it's not really possible to find that flexibility in a profession, and it's only because I've been doing it for as long as I've been doing music that I can balance both. It's not super common to be able to do that.

I wouldn't ever put all my eggs in a music basket only just because I like saying no to stuff, and I don't like being pressured to put stuff out. I spend a long time editing records, so I like to have the ability to have control over that. If I was doing. music full-time, I don't think I could.

As far as balancing the two sides, have you ever ran into any occupational hazards?
It's pretty smooth. I just have to be on emails and on my phone all the time. But I've benefited from having connections within the fashion industry, so when it's time to shoot a music video or press photos, I have a circle of friends that I can tap into. I also try and help if there's any models I'm managing that are interested in music. I try to lend a little bit of advice or support. I manage a model named Le Ren who had a record out on Secretly and is touring all the time, and she's amazing. She doesn't need my help, but I'm there if she ever needs it.

Strangely, the businesses go hand-in-hand. There's a weird overlap in the creative fields. With No Joy stuff, I sometimes do the boring admin stuff as well, so the skill set applies—but then I have to be careful to make time to be creative sometimes, because it's easy to get lost in the emails and the Excel sheets. Sometimes I have to just be like, "We are making music today."

You mentioned TikTok shoegaze before. You've often strayed from the genre in general, even as it's become something periodically associated with your music. With this record specifically, do you feel like you were more conscious about avoiding certain types of sounds and tropes?
I don't think so. I'm always trying to avoid any tropes, and I'm always trying to pull references where, if it's too obvious, I'm like, "No, let's not do this." For this record, the only musical reference that I had was Boards of Canada, because I found their music to be so natural, organic, and peaceful—but also electronic and technical. That distinction was something I wanted to bring into to Bugland. Angel also got me really into Type O Negative. Oh nice. She was like, "Your music's in Mixolydian—guess whose else is? Here's Type O Negative."

I always find it weird—and maybe this happens in other musical genres—but I don't know why sounding and looking like these couple of bands that quote-unquote started the genre equals "good." Sounding just like My Bloody Valentine means you are "good shoegaze," but to me shoegaze is just pedals, experimenting, and wall-of-sound. That can happen in so many different ways, and a bunch of bands sounding like Nothing or Deftones—that's cool, I guess, but I'll just go listen to Nothing. I don't need to listen to a bunch of bands that sound like them. That always confuses me about shoegaze, and it's why I have an odd relationship with the genre. It suggests that you're supposed to fit in a box, and that is so boring to me.

At this point, it's a lot like the chillwave stuff of the early 2010s. Like, okay, you've recreated these very specific nostalgic sounds—what else? You mentioned Boards of Canada, and the most generous chillwave comparisons gestured towards them—but Boards of Canada are really fucking dark!
I feel similarly with both chillwave and shoegaze. If you can get the vibe, then I guess artists feel like, "Well, that's it." But if your songs suck, your songs fucking suck. If a polka band wants to play my song arranged in a polka arrangement, it should still sound good—and that's how you know you have a good song.

Let me ask you: Were you aware of Duster as a band when you were younger? I'm 38, and they never came up for me as a touchstone when I was doing the digging as a teenager. They're a good band, but I've kind of been like, "Where the hell did this come from, anyway?"
Okay, so we're almost the same age, and I honestly never heard them. When I saw them taking off, I thought it was Guster. I was like, "Whoa, that's weird—OK, I guess!" But I have not listened to them.

I don't know if you would agree with this, but the 2020s are starting to feel like "the lost decade," to me. COVID had a lot to do with this, but for people our age, if they're not getting into jazz or Grateful Dead, they're like, "Well, what do kids like?" And the kids are like, "Oh, we don't know, we do a different thing every day now." It's very chaotic guesswork from everyone involved.
The Grateful Dead thing is so funny, because I do know so many people that are like, "Well, I like Phish now."

Did you ever like that stuff at all?
Not really. I'm not like a Deadhead or anything like that. When we were doing this record, though, I was conscious of how removed I am. I'm not at as many shows, so I'm out of touch with who's touring, so my approach was "40-year-old woman discovers Warp's back catalog for the first time."

But it does feel a little lost. I wonder if it's because there was such a break with in-person stuff. There was a break, and then there was a real surge where it was packed with everybody touring nonstop, and tickets are expensive, and it's hard to tour. So I do agree with you. I don't know if it's because it's so fragmented, or because there's no huge record that's shaping people.

There was a goat on the cover of Motherhood, and this record is literally called Bugland. Tell. me more about your relationship with nature in general. I know we talked before about the stillness and quiet that your current location affords.
I live in an area that you would probably expect country music to come out of, which is part of the reason why I wanted to make the record so maximalist. Country living, to me, is a crazy sax solo, glitchy beats, and drop-d bass. Maybe I've taken it for granted that nature was always my touchstone for feeling hopeful. I'm not a religious person, but my relationship with animals and nature is something that I grew up with and is very ingrained in me. I never even realized how much of an influence it was on me, and when I was shooting this album artwork, my manager was even like, "Oh, you had a cockroach on the Creep EP cover." I forgot that this was always part of me, but now it's almost in technicolor—way more vibrant and present.

I do think that, when the world is fucked and feels really hopeless, as an individual you don't know what to do. But I do think nature is very inspiring. Things regenerate and find ways to work together in harmony, and it's a good reset for me to find optimism again. So making the record was very hopeful and optimistic and almost romantic, in a way—with nature, and trying to do it in my own way, and not falling into the "Old lady moves to the country and makes a solo record with an acoustic guitar" thing. I wanted to do the opposite of that, and that's what nature sounds like to me, I guess.