No Joy kicked off their North American fall tour Sept. 13 at Cafe Dekcuf.
The band is the brainchild of two friends, Jasmine White-Gluz and Laura Lloyd. The duo have been making music together as No Joy since 2009 and their second full length album, Wait to Pleasure, was released earlier this summer to rave reviews.
Their sound is classified as shoe-gaze, with warm fuzzy guitar tones that layer over thick bass and tight drums. The vocals are hazy and the band makes a point of not releasing their lyrics publicly.
No Joy recorded Wait to Pleasure with record label Mexican Summer. They have been working with the label since their first 7 inch, White-Gluz said.
“It was this weird thing,” White-Gluz said. “We had two songs that we put on cassette and that day we were like ‘oh it would be cool to have it on vinyl.’ We emailed [Mexican Summer], but the email bounced because we suck at emailing. But serendipity, they had just messaged us on MySpace.”
Wait to Pleasure was recorded at the Mexican Summer studio in New York, which White-Gluz said was an incredible experience that lasted about two and a half weeks.
“We had recorded a few of the songs before, but we weren’t thrilled with the recording, so we toured them,” White-Gluz said. “They got better because we had played them so many times. By the time we had recorded them it was their best.”
While touring, No Joy had to make time to write songs in the little time they had off.
“We did most of the writing for this album at home between tours. We were writing over the winter and scrapped a lot of it,” Lloyd said.
“Once we knew we were going into the studio there was a lot of pressuring writing,” White-Gluz added.
With the return to touring for the rest of the year, No Joy reflected on some of the lows and the highlights of the past.
“On our first North American tour it was like we had a death wish. Everywhere we went it was like we were almost dying,” White-Gluz said.
On a more positive note, White-Gluz and Lloyd said they both had positive memories of Primavera, their first major festival.
“Spain is always a shocker,” White-Gluz said.
For their first single from Wait to Pleasure, “Hare Tarot Lies,” the duo created a psychedelic music video. Made by videographer Jason Harvey, the video shows Harvey’s friends driving around puking.
“[Harvey] is our bass player’s cousin. He gave us the treatment and he is a graphic designer. We just found him. Before he just did web animations, and then he made some videos for Mac Demarco,” White-Gluz said.
Lloyd said Harvey wrote most of the video and then, together, the band went over the parts they did and didn’t like.
No Joy shared the stage with two Ottawa bands, Shaman, who brought their unique blend of metal, and Kings Quest, who played surf rock. No Joy’s sound filled the cafe, making for a happy crowd and a good start to their tour.
