Month: March 2019

 

I can’t pretend that I had even heard of Julia Jacklin until a month ago but Crushing makes me feel like I know her intimately.  I often pick an album from Metacritic’s highest scored new albums and commit to spending some real time with it. This year, I have found 3 albums in this way that I adore and considered for AOTM. I have decided to go with Crushing by Julia Jacklin as I find it the most emotionally connecting of the three. The instrumentation, production and arrangements take a back seat to hauntingly powerful yet understated lyrics. There are more upbeat moments on the album than the opening track that I’ve linked above but they are still melancholy and moody in their atmosphere.

This is the kind of album that makes me reconsider actions, words and relationships from my past. I find it rare that an album makes me feel as much as this album does and I love it for this.

The opening track is called ‘Body’ and is a beautifully written remembering of a difficult relationship captured in a 5 minute track of simplistic beauty. The story telling is compelling and affecting and paints pictures that you connect with instantly (or at least I do). Following this track the word ‘body’ appears in more than half of the remaining tracks and marks and openness and intimacy that makes me feel like I might just love Julia.

I don’t want to say much more than I have other than that I hope you connect with this in the same way that I have.