Since hitting us with her debut album, ‘Don’t Let The Kids Win’ in 2016, stunning folk songstress, Julia Jacklin has been crushing the music industry game, touring relentlessly, taking out the ‘Next Big Thing’ title at the FBi Radio SMAC Awards, and working in side project, Phantastic Ferniture. In March 2018 she announced that she had completed recording on her follow up album and now friends, she is ready to unleash it. Accurately titled, ‘Crushing’ delves into re-evaluation of relationship and friendships, and the expectations attached, while also crushing expectations of popular music.
“It’s about relationships and not just romantic ones like friendships and what’s expected of you in those things and what you expect of other people. When I was younger I was willing to put up with a lot more but as I’ve gotten older I’ve realised what I want and what I deserve and what I expect of myself to give back to other people,” Jacklin says. “I guess in terms of expectations of the industry, definitely this record, I always thought if I was making a second album it would have to be really produced and it would have to be really big but in a way I went the opposite way and it’s pretty minimal and it’s not overproduced and I think that was me trying to make sure that I stay true to what I like and what I want to do and not feel like I needed to make a real radio friendly second album. I made the record in a way that I knew I could play it live.”
Produced by Burke Reid and recorded in The Grove Studios, Jacklin felt more confident in pulling the ten track album together and is genuinely happy with the results.
“My first one, yeah it was my first one. I wasn’t in the industry, they were just songs I had written in the previous three years just so I could play shows around Sydney. I just kind of did it myself and went to New Zealand to record it but didn’t have anyone asking me to record it or pushing me to record it, no one expected that from me at all so I was very new to the studio setting and process,” says Jacklin. “My life has changed a lot going from my early twenties to where I am now. It’s worlds apart! I definitely felt a lot more pressure on the first one I guess because people thought I was a bit silly to make a record when I didn’t have any manager or anything. I felt like if I failed it would be quite humiliating but with this one, yeah sure if I failed this one it would have also been humiliating, probably on a grander scale, however I just felt a lot more confident in my ability and felt a lot stronger and I felt it was a lot easier to ask for what I wanted this time which I didn’t feel confident to do the first time.”
It wasn’t all a seamless process though. ‘Crushing’ was born out of a year and a half of writers block where Jacklin feared she would never be able to write another song again.
“It was a scary time,” she admits. “But then they [the songs] all just started coming after I relaxed a bit and got the hang of touring.”
From listening to the album, you would not be able to tell.
‘Crushing’ landed last Friday (22 February). Check it out and hear it live as Julia Jacklin embarks on an extensive Australian and UK/European tour with her band and support from art-pop chameleon, Olympia.
Written by Tammy Walters
Photo by Nick Mckk
