No Joy and Fire-Toolz have announced Big Life, Big Leaf, a new three-song EP due August 21. Pitchfork reports that the release is coming via Hand Drawn Dracula, while the official YouTube description and Northern Transmissions also list Sonic Cathedral for the UK and Europe. The title track is out now with a video directed by Jeremy Dabrowski, and it makes the reunion feel less like a side note to Bugland than a bright little rupture of its own.
No Joy's Jasamine White-Gluz and Angel Marcloid, who records as Fire-Toolz, already bent shoegaze into hyper-detailed digital shapes on Bugland. Big Life, Big Leaf keeps that partnership moving, but the title track pushes toward a sunnier, stranger version of the same language: dance-pop lift, smeared guitars, and the kind of emotional overload that can feel ecstatic and grief-struck at the same time.
The credits help explain the density. The official video description says Big Life, Big Leaf was written by White-Gluz, Jorge Elbrecht, and Marcloid, co-produced by No Joy and Fire-Toolz, mixed by Marcloid, and mastered by Heba Kadry. Northern Transmissions and Stereogum both note that Kittie's Tara McLeod appears on guitar, which gives the song some of its heavy but glassy edge.
Pitchfork and Stereogum both list the EP as three tracks, with Barking at the Sun and the title track joined by a closer called Süki & Amadeus. The official YouTube page also points listeners toward preorder links, which makes this feel like the proper next step in the Bugland universe rather than a loose one-off.
For No Joy, this is a smart follow-through rather than a reset. Bugland already proved that White-Gluz and Marcloid could make shoegaze feel unstable, synthetic, and weirdly tender without sanding off the noise. Big Life, Big Leaf sounds like they found more voltage in that circuit and decided to leave the sparks visible.