No Joy - Motherhood (2020) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

First No Joy LP since 2015’s More Faithful. No Joy’s relentless sonic permutations are evidence of frontperson and principal songwriter Jasamine White-Gluz’s insatiable desire to grow.

For No Joy’s first full length in five years, White-Gluz took what she learned from synthesis, reincorporated guitars, and produced an album that is not a departure from No Joy’s early shoegaze, but a stylistically omnivorous expansion that ekes into trip hop, trance and nu-metal. Motherhood is the culmination of years composing outside of her comfort zone, and a return to DIY recording with a leveled-up expertise in production. Throughout the record there are loving nostalgic nods to the records White-Gluz adored on their release twenty years ago - Massive Attack, Sneaker Pimps, No Doubt.

White-Gluz hadn’t read Sheila Heti’s Motherhood when she wrote and titled this record, but when she did, the narrative parallels between the two projects were “like looking into a mirror. Time is critical, and you have to make decisions that are extremely time sensitive and your body doesn’t care,” she explains. “It’s a lot of seeing myself through my mother’s experiences, and the physicalness of a body getting older.” The album also investigates the implications of her parents’ aging on her role as their child.

Heti’s book’s central conceit is an open-ended pondering of whether dedication to writing is more significant than the desire to have children. No Joy doesn’t definitively answer this existential quagmire, either - how could anyone? Instead, Motherhood is a beautifully dense exploration that proves how thoughtful, thorough music can translate into art that is rich, vast and alive.

Tracklist:
1. Birthmark (03:39)
2. Dream Rats (feat. Alissa White-Gluz) (03:34)
3. Nothing Will Hurt (03:12)
4. Four (04:17)
5. Ageless (02:44)
6. Why Mothers Die (03:36)
7. Happy Bleeding (03:37)
8. Signal Lights (03:52)
9. Fish (04:23)
10. Primal Curse (03:54)
11. Kidder (04:43)


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