[MUSIC REVIEW] Julia Jacklin - "Crushing" (2019)
The first song is called "Body". It's a spacious sound landscape, where the drums are at the forefront. Julia Jacklin sings about a relationship that has reached the end station. The split feelings that arise afterwards and old memories that haunt. There is a powerful simplicity about "Body", and it's as timeless as it's earthy.
The 2016 debut album from Australian singer/songwriter Julia Jacklin deals with performance anxiety and the stress of getting old, especially in relation to the music industry, something she seems to be at peace with three years later.
On her new album Crushing, it's the close relationships that are scrutinized. Julia Jacklin says that the album is sprung from two years of touring and simultaneously being in a relationship, and the feeling of not having one's own space. She describes an urgent need to live and work on her own terms. The relationship is cracking already on the album's opening song, and from there we get to follow an individuals pursuit towards a personal identity.
The most powerful moments are when Jacklin's voice becomes very intimate, as in "Body" and "When The Family Flies In". The latter is dedicated to her friend and colleague Adrian, who passed away in cancer three years ago. A restrained piano together with Jacklin's frail voice. She sings about her friend's last time in life and ends with a bleak "well, goodbye". It's a muted and dismal elegy. Something that adds to the feeling of intimacy (and mournfulness) is the home-recorded piano. The combination of lo-fi and a more polished sound pervades the whole album.
Crushing is a record about daring to give up and resign, to unsentimentaly let go of things that have been part of your life. Jacklin's perfect blend of poetic delivery and meaningful songwriting makes her my new darling on the vast singer-songwriter map, in good company with the likes of Angel Olsen and Weyes Blood.
Hey Steemswede :-) ... it really sounds like a personal, dark and introvert “expression” (oxymoron) this artist is going for. While not actually becoming depressing :-)
Hey Mandibil! No, while there are some quite pitch-black tracks (such as When the Family Flies In), as a whole the album is not depressing. It's more of a personal and candid journey of independence, reclamation and transformation. The end result is actually quite uplifting.
Cool, I really like it when it is rather a katharsis, than a statement. One wants to mirror emotions in an artists expression but also find some tools for getting on with it :-) I just uploaded a review of "The Turin Horse" which to some extend deals with some of these notion albeit on another level .-)
Welcome back Sir 😀
Thanks! :)