No Joy

Canadian shoegazers No Joy share new single ‘Bits’ taken from new album Bugland is out on August 8.

No Joy have released a new single. ‘Bits’ is a stunning and melodic track which switches effortlessly between Lush dreampop and L7-style grunge.

“The original demo was built around me blowing out my guitar distortion using the EarthQuaker Devices Bit Commander guitar pedal,” 

explains No Joy’s Jasamine White-Gluz.

“Thematically, I wanted to capture the feeling of running through tall grass, playing hide and seek behind big trees.”

The spoken word towards the end of the song is actually excerpts from a letter Jasamine wrote to the music media as a child in 1994 defending Courtney Love and urging them to leave her alone.

‘Bits’ is out now on all digital platforms and is taken from the forthcoming album Bugland, which is out on August 8.

It’s the first new No Joy album for five years and is released via Sonic Cathedral (UK / EU) and Hand Drawn Dracula (ROW).

Bugland finds White-Gluz teaming up with co-producer and renowned future fusionist Fire-Toolz (aka Angel Marcloid) to create the aural equivalent of a late-’80s i-D magazine front and back cover, with a non-problematic National Geographic hiding within.

The album was, at least in part, inspired by White-Gluz’s move to a more rustic area of Quebec, something that also explains the gap between albums. The most recent No Joy release was 2020’s Motherhood, which Pitchfork described as “a shoegaze album with a rare scope and an even rarer sense of fun and imagination”.

“The wait wasn’t intentional, but I think rural living made me tune out the noise of the music biz and focus more inwards, writing and taking my damn time.”

White-Gluz explains,

“The collaboration really felt limitless,”

says Fire-Toolz, the inspired choice for co-producer, who also offers other sonic additions, dances, noises and mysticism.

“I could easily relate to it because Jasamine and I liked a lot of the same music, and I was able to be creative in ways that were freeing as if I was making my own album.”

Both spent days driving on empty rural highways listening to the mixes, and it reflects in the final album. With an open ear, many “influence eggs” can be detected by the listener. Opener ‘Garbage Dream House’ is Zooropian without any of U2’s ego baggage, while epic closing track ‘Jelly Meadow Bright’ manages to meld the out of control saxophone from The Stooges’ Fun House with both Deerhunter and also the chill buoyancy of a high-end spa.

Touching on respected, familiar genres and sounds while attempting to advance one’s own isn’t easy, but Bugland manages to. What genre is it anyway? Is it even shoegaze when it could live happily on a shelf next to Boards of Canada and Autechre? The right answer is ‘yes’. What a lovely shelf it would be as well.

Bugland is a testament to White-Gluz’s evolution and her ability to channel a wide variety of tastes into something cohesive that can descend into fine-tuned chaos, then out of that chaos with ease.

No Joy now play the following live shows, including a number of newly announced North American dates.

Tour Dates

September 3 – Washington DC - Comet Ping Pong

September 4 – New York, NY – Trans Pecos

September 5 – Philadelphia, PA – Kung Fu Necktie

September 6 – Elizabethtown, NY – Otis Mountain

September 13 – Calgary, AB – Dandy Fest

September 26 – Montreal, QC – Pop Montreal

October 1 – Ottawa, ON – 27 Club

October 2 – Toronto, ON – Project Nowhere

October 15 – Manchester, UK – YES Basement

October 17 – London, UK – Moth Club

October 18 – Chelmsford, UK – Hot Box

October 19 – Coventry, UK – Just Dropped In

October 20 – Glasgow, UK – Glad Cafe

October 21 – Leeds, UK – Headrow House

October 23 & 24 – Rotterdam, NL – Left of the Dial Festival

October 25 – Paris, FR – Supersonic

October 28 – Berlin, DE – 8mm

November 7 – Seattle, WA – Freak Out Fest 

Bugland is available to pre-order on vinyl and digital here.