Julia Jacklinās 2016 debut, Donāt Let the Kids Win, is a remarkably clear-eyed chronicle of the unease and uncertainty of being in your 20s.
āI had a life in my head/Iād be pushing up that hill until those toes bled,ā the Australian singer/songwriter laments in āComing of Age,ā one of the recordās fuzzed-out rockers. āNow I gotta learn this new stage.ā
Jacklin was 23 when she started writing the songs on Kids. Sheās 27 now, with a slew of glowing reviews under her belt and a tour schedule full of venues that hold three- and four-figure audiences. What a difference a few years makes.
āThere was a really scary period [in there],ā she says from a tour stop in England. āI was playing in Sydney for five years before I made the album, and I made the album without a label or a manager or any contact with the industry at all. I came home and I had zero idea what to do with it. I had no clue. I was just kind of hoping someone would email me.ā
Someone did, and that someone knew someone else, and so on, until eventually Jacklin signed on to release Kids through the London-based Transgressive Records. It became a surprise hit of 2016āthe Guardian called it āone of those albums that will slowly creep into the affections of a large number of people.ā
Jacklinās music moves at an unhurried pace, meandering between traditional folk, indie pop, alt-country, roots-rock, and reverberant soul. Sometimes backed by an acoustic guitar and other times by a full band, her voice is a wonder: strong but supple, distinctive but cozy, teeming with tangible emotion. For a self-funded album made by someone suffering a quarter-life crisis, Kids is incredibly self-assured.
āA lot of the songs were written from the perspective of knowing I was doing something I didnāt want to do, which was being at university and working,ā Jacklin says. āI remember writing [the song āMotherlandā] and thinking, like, I donāt want my family to tell me āI told you soā in five years.ā
These days, Jacklin is winding down touring in support of Kids. Sheās written new songs and will record her sophomore effort early next year. And as her career trajectory has turned upward, performing those old songs has felt, at times, like a ācabaret actā featuring a younger version of herself, Jacklin says. That doesnāt mean the uncertainty has disappeared. It just takes different forms now.
āAt the beginning, youāre worried that no one is listening to your music. But now Iām worried that too many people are listening to my music, therefore the pressure on the next release is great,ā she says.
āI think when I first started getting attention, I was like, āAww, sweet. Sign this deal. Sign that deal. Get onto that festival.ā And then Iām gonna plateau into the comfortable happiness of being a musician,ā Jacklin says. āNow Iām like... thatās definitely not a thing.ā
Jacklin has learned not only to deal with the uncertainties of a career in music, but to appreciate them as a necessary tension that fuels her art.
āI think the moment Iām comfortable with this job, and the moment Iām like, āOh, okay, cool. This is what Iām doing,āā Jacklin says, āthatās probably the moment Iāll start writing shitty songs.ā