Music

Julia Jacklin’s debut record may be taking her places but she’s definitely not leaving the Mountains behind

She has barely stepped off the plane from America and already emerging indie-folk artist Julia Jacklin is finding reasons to head back to her original home. “I’m shooting a video in the main street of Springwood this weekend,” she tells me with unabashed excitement about a quick trip up to the Mountains.

In her earlier years she was in a high school band, “we were called Anonymous and we played at Springwood Presbyterian Church band comp. I did Musical Society and musicals at High School, but I wasn’t really in bands because I couldn’t play an instrument.” Downplaying her classically trained vocal skills, Julia’s journey took her to university and away from our hazy hills.

SYDNEY KIDS

“It wasn’t until I moved to Sydney and I started hanging out with people from the Blue Mountains in Sydney that I started a band with them.”

Julia went to university to pursue Social Work, and tells us “I gave myself a couple of years to pursue my music, and I’m still in those couple of years and it seems to be going alright right now...”

She understates it, but ‘alright’ is currently a trophy wall with medals from Triple J Unearthed, feature album ribbons on every indie radio station and record reviews that are piling up beside her Reeboks. But she hasn’t earned the growing and glowing accolades without merit, her debut Don’t Let The Kids Win is a cruiser that will sit in record crates and collections forever.

“I just wanted the songs to stand out, and it not to be drenched with production. I wanted the lyrics to just kinda punch through the production, and I wanted it to be quite lo-fi and simple, and I think that’s why it can sound quite old fashioned I guess,” Julia says of her era-crossing sound.

“For my first record I wanted these songs that I’d written in a two year period to have the best chance they could to breathe on a record.“The lyrics are personal, you can at times feel like she’s just telling you what happened to her as a friend might after a breakup, she draws you in and her mild melancholy rubs onto you.

“I try and open my yrics up to people around me. Being in your mid-twenties can be quite confusing, because it’s that time in your life when suddenly your high school aspirations smack into the reality of how hard it is to actually become the person you want to become. I was having an experience where you wonder if you are doing the right thing.”

FILM SCHOOL

With two more Mountains guys in her band, Julia’s made it a point to shoot her videos here, she’s directed both of them and is shooting the next one in Springwood soon.

“I try and include my roots and where I first started singing,” she talks about filming Leadlight at her High School assembly hall. “When you are at school you think that’s where I’ve got to sit through boring assemblies or exams so it was nice to go back and see it was actually a cool room.”

So how does an artist from windy Winmalee end up on a worldwide tour and with a Triple J feature album? “For me, a big part of it is utilising your online presence, being strong with how you want to present yourself as an artist, and creating interesting content. People are fascinated by the Blue Mountains – they straight away want to listen to what you have to say, so use that and incorporate that in your art.”

Pumped Up Kicks:

“I found them at Springwood Salvo’s! They’re local shoes. I was going to a Vegas themed birthday as a retiree so I bought these shoes for my costume and then I ended up wearing them all the time!”

Old School

Leadlight was filmed back at Julia’s familiar High School in Winmalee

When: Dec 16, 2016 at Baroque Room, Katoomba