Next month, Julia Cumming will release her first-ever solo album. For many years, Cumming has led the New York indie rock band Sunflower Bean; their debut album Human Ceremony came out almost exactly a decade ago. Now, Cumming is venturing off on her own to release the new album Julia, and people are treating it as a potential big deal. Edgar Wright, for instance, directed the video for lead single "My Life." And last night, Julia Cumming performed that song on Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show.
As far as I can tell, Sunflower Bean have never been Fallon musical guests, but the show offered its spotlight to solo Julia Cumming last night. On Instagram, Cumming said that it was both her late-night debut and her "first performance as a solo artist… ever?" She's done covers at a couple of Sinéad O'Connor tribute shows in the past year, but it looks like the Fallon performance was indeed the first time she's sung one of her solo songs in public. It turns out that that solo-artist version of a Julia Cumming performance is pretty different from what she does with Sunflower Bean.
On Fallon, Cumming sang "My Life," a slinky, '70s-style introspective singer-songwriter pop song. She showed some real impressive vocal range on that stage, and she also did some synchronized steps with a couple of backup dancers. They did chair work and everything. I wouldn't say that Cumming goes full Tate McRae in this performance, but it comes closer than I would've guessed. She's got the voice and the charisma to pull it off, too. Watch it below.
Julia is out 4/24 on Partisan.
