The world is getting a new Julia Jacklin album this year.
The acclaimed Australian singer-songwriter tonight announced The Gem, her fourth studio album, which will arrive on September 25th. It will be Jacklin’s debut release on 4AD / Remote Control Records.
The album title takes its name from a small Collingwood bar Jacklin discovered when she first moved to Melbourne from Sydney in 2017.
With time on her side to make her fourth album, she decided to record it at home in Melbourne, something she’d never done before. She contacted old drinking mate Robert Muinos, owner of Rat Shack Studios, which is located above The Gem, and also recruited a trio of musician friends, Jacob Diamond (guitar), Mimi Gilbert (bass), and Jess Elwood (drums)
They recorded in close quarters, in converted hotel room accommodation upstairs at the pub, making sure not to record late into the night as it was a residential bar. Jacklin and her band even played two surprise shows there to try out their new tracks.
Usually quick to record an album, Jacklin tinkered with The Gem for almost a year.
“The Gem felt like a metaphor for the whole process, because a lot of it did feel like digging. I felt like I was doing it almost in the dark, just trusting I was going to find something,” she explains.
Love Music?
Get your daily dose of everything happening in Australian/New Zealand music and globally.
The band got matching tattoos — a neat little circle to represent an opal, Jacklin’s favourite gemstone — on the last day of album sessions.
“It did really feel like we’d done something special together. And I think as a group, it felt important to commemorate it. I’m glad we all have these little gems on us,” Jacklin says.
Arriving alongside the album announcement is lead single “Get Away From Me (I Think I’ll Love You Soon), which you can listen to below.
The track, which premiered on triple j, is described as “a bold and fun nod to eighties jangle rock and to the Melbourne sound she fell in love with.”
The official music video finds Jacklin reimagining the album’s striking cover art (watch below).
In two weeks, some lucky Jacklin fans will be offered the chance to hear tracks from The Gem performed live for the first time when she heads to the UK and Ireland for a solo tour of indie stores
Fans can catch her at Spindizzy in Dublin on June 28th; Resident in Brighton on June 29th Rough Trade East in London on June 30th; Jacaranda in Liverpool on July 2nd; Rough Trade in Nottingham on July 3rd.
To celebrate her new album, Jacklin will tour around North America, the UK, and Europe. Find out more here.
The Gem follows Jacklin’s most recent album, 2022’s Pre Pleasure, which earned the Melbourne musician nominations for Best Solo Artist, Best Independent Release, and Best Adult Contemporary Album at the 2022 ARIA Awards.
Jacklin featured not once, not twice, but three times in our Best Australian & New Zealand Songs of the 21st Century So Far list last year. “Don’t Know How to Keep Loving You” (2019), “Lydia Wears a cross” (2022), and “Pressure Party” (2019) all made the cut.
Pre Pleasure, meanwhile, made our 100 Best Australian Albums of the 2020s So Far countdown.
Pre Pleasure, we wrote, “wasn’t just one of the best Australian releases of 2022; it was one of the finest songwriting collections to come out of Australian music in many years.”
“A confessional lyricist with few equals, Pre Pleasure found Jacklin vulnerably wrestling with her religious upbringing, her relationship with her body, and her battles with anxiety. Both empathetic and wry, the tracks felt like short stories in the making, the words of an artist really developing her command of storytelling,” we added in the list.
“Traditionally leaving around three years between album releases, here’s hoping Jacklin’s fourth album arrives sooner rather than later. No rush, though: as Pre Pleasure showed, moving slowly, considering life at your own pace, is something to be treasured.”
Julia Jacklin’s “Get Away From Me (I Think I’ll Love You Soon)” is out now. The Gem is out September 25th via 4AD / Remote Control Records (pre-save/pre-order here).
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source au.rollingstone.com ’
