Julia Jacklin is changing her mind. There’s power in that. When I spoke with the Melbourne-based musician about her last album Pre Pleasure, in 2022, she imagined that her future self might approach music with more calculation. “Maybe when I have a bit more time, I’ll come in with real intentions. But at the moment, whatever happens is what the record is,” she told me. When we reconnect over a quick Zoom chat during release week for its follow-up, The Gem, Jacklin feels differently. She’s not seeking more control; she’s learning to let it go. In making The Gem, she embraced the chaos of her process and, in doing so, arrived at something that feels unmistakably her own.
“I've never really arrived at a studio with the songs done ever, and I think every other record I've felt bad about that,” she says. “I felt like I was being unprofessional, and I didn't quite understand that's just my process.” I don’t even bring up our past conversation, but she’s communicating with her past self. She understands that 2022 version of herself, and, throughout our chat, respectfully disagrees with her.
This time, Jacklin also resisted the urge to rush the music into the world — a lifelong creative tendency she seems to have finally learned to sit with. Rather than forcing the next chapter into existence, she allowed herself to move at a slower pace, accepting the ebbs and flows of making something before deciding she was ready to begin another album cycle.
Her fourth studio album, and first for 4AD, finds Jacklin quieting her ego while doubling down on the creative instincts she once questioned. The Gem undoubtedly sounds like a Jacklin record: gutting lyricism, intimate anecdotes, and transfixing melodies that make recognizable feelings glisten anew. But there’s something more elusive here, too. These songs feel less concerned with explaining themselves. Small moments become stilling meditations; familiar emotional territory is rendered strange or comfortably unknown.
On the closing track, “I Wish,” featuring Australian folk duo the Maes, Jacklin addresses a past version of herself — one who was struggling and deserved more support than she received. The song is ultimately about resilience, but not the triumphant kind. It’s about becoming someone new without pretending the person you were before needed to disappear. “Oh I grew/ Into a new shape/ Something new, a foreign landscape/ With no trees, not a drop of rain/ Would not believe things could grow from pain,” she sings in the final verse.
Her voice is accompanied by sparse acoustic guitar and the Maes’ warm, nurturing harmonies. Together, they reach toward something beyond resolution. In addition to being a potent letter to her younger self, “I Wish” feels less like a conclusion than a thesis for The Gem: There is no correct way to grow, and no neat trajectory to flourish. Sometimes you simply become something else, and only later learn to appreciate the shape you’ve taken.
Read our conversation below.
Yay! Okay. How are you? How's it going?
JACKLIN: Um, I'm just a bit frazzled today. It's just one of those days. I got my hair cut. It took so long, and I had a million different things to do. I got a song coming out in 25 minutes, so it's been classic "video gets finished like last night" — that kind of thing. So I'm just feeling a bit wonky, but ultimately fine. How are you?
I'm fine. I woke up an hour ago, so I'm just kind of settling into the day. I'm on my second cup of coffee. Do you get anxious or sort or excited pre single release because there's bound to be a lot of feedback?
JACKLIN: Yeah, I think it gets increasingly easier as the album goes on. The first one's always the worst. Every single album I've released, I feel the first single you build it up into being this massive thing, and because it's very hard to pick. It feels like you have to pick the song to start the chapter, and none of the songs feel like the right one to me. But then once you release that one, and then you get to release a few more, it's okay, it's okay. But I feel pretty good about this one actually.
Was there a reason you started with “Get Away From Me (I Think I’ll Love You Soon),” choosing that one for the first single?
JACKLIN: That was truly like label down. They picked that one, and it's a new relationship. So I was like, "I got to be cool," and I trust them. Every other album I've released, the first song on the record is the first single, and this was the first time I didn't do that. I think this whole campaign has been a really good exercise in letting go a bit of control with this job. That was kind of a big, good one at the start, an exercise in letting go of control. And it was a great choice, and they were right, I think, because it's a fun catchy one and a good entry point.
It's definitely the most upbeat I think on the album, outside of maybe “Brand New,” which feels more expansive.
JACKLIN: I don't think it's a good representation of what the album sounds like, so maybe that's why I was a bit hesitant because I was like, “Oh no, are people going to then expect this kind of '80s jangled rock upbeat, happy days kind of album." Anyway, it's always weird because you're having to pick apart a body of work and show it to people in these tiny little packages to entice them to buy the album. If you're an artist who participates in the music industry, you have to put your ego aside a little bit sometimes with this stuff and go this is the part where we sell the thing.
Yeah that's super interesting. I'm currently in a creative writing program, and for one of my projects I was deciding if it should be a series of essays or a larger project, which is somewhat similar to singles. Do these things all stand alone, or is it part of one big thing? There's always a tension between songs living on their own while also being a part of a bigger body of work.
JACKLIN: Yeah. Albums are weird. I love albums, I do. But then I know that I’ll say I love an album, but then if I was being truthful, I might only love like two songs on that album. Sometimes albums are vehicles for two killer songs, and the other songs are the stand to be on top of. That doesn't make it not a good album if it’s not every song. I got asked recently to name an album that was like no skips, and I don't think I've ever heard one. [Laughs] I don't think I've ever heard an album that I don't want to skip at least two of the songs, and that's not necessarily because the two songs are bad. I also don't think that that to me doesn't mean it's a great album, just because every single song is good, really good or something. I always find it incredibly difficult to choose a bunch of songs to put on one thing. It doesn't feel right.
I was also just reading that you'd written the best song, but it didn't make the album. It’s a similar type of thing where you create something amazing, but it doesn't work, and then it's like, how do you define what amazing is if not for a specific project?
JACKLIN: I was talking to someone about this recently, a friend of mine who makes a lot of music, and then when they get to the point where they're going to put it out, it all falls apart, and they panic. And I was like, you have to put it out because what you're doing is thinking that you can wait until you make the perfect album before you put it out. That's never going to happen. You need to actually exercise the muscle of making things and putting them out and seeing how that feels. That's actually something you just have to get used to, and it's very vulnerable. Even at the moment, I was thinking about that amazing song I couldn't finish, and I wish I'd finished that for this album. It would have been so great on this album, but I just couldn't do it, and that's also just part of it. I'm never going to achieve what I want, and that's why I keep making music, because it’s like a fantasy.
After finishing the album, you went back and redid some songs. I would love to hear more about that. What's the difference between knowing something isn't ready versus just being afraid or anxious to put something out?
JACKLIN: It's funny because I'm going against the advice I just gave. [Laughs] But I have been too far the other way. When I first started making music, I would write a song, I would record it, I would make a video, I would put it on YouTube like that day, and then I would go to work, and the whole time I was at work I'd be like, “Oh, I wonder if anyone's watched it or listened to it.” I would write a song and then I would want to play it to people immediately. I was always falling over my own feet to share things I was doing, and I've actually had to sometimes just take a breath. Over the years I've been just pulling that back a little bit. I knew I would eventually put this album out. I've had the opposite problem of just not spending enough time, which is funny because I feel it's more common the other way to not be able to to commit and then put stuff out.
I've talked about this quite a lot. So there's so many different reasons why I started [the album] again, but really it was just a disquiet in my heart. It wasn't only that I hadn't made the record I wanted to make. I also wasn't ready to do this whole thing, you know. It's not just making a record and then getting it all packaged and stuff. You have to be psychologically ready to be a public person and be able to speak about yourself and to be able to speak about your work, and I just wasn't there yet, and the work I knew wasn't also. I couldn't stand behind it as much as I would need to in order for this whole thing not to destroy me.
Releasing albums can mess with your nervous system in a pretty intense way. I just wasn't ready to do that yet, and I knew that deep down. But I was just rushing because I always feel like I'm running out of time. That's a very common feeling I've had my whole life, which I feel like only stopped last year. I suddenly am like, oh, well, I've been rushing since I was like 10 years old. Last year something happened, and I finally just slowed down.
Selfishly, I really want to hear about the song “Real Life.” I think that's my favorite song on the album. I feel like overall there's some songs on here that stay at one level. That's a song that doesn't climax or go anywhere, but it feels really magical and surreal in a really lovely way.
JACKLIN: I love songs that just go [makes steady line motion with hand]. I'm always trying to write those songs, but they can be deceptively difficult. That one, yeah, I mean, thank you. That song was part of me redoing the album because that song used to be like a real indie rocker. When I was listening to how it used to be, I had this overwhelming feeling of, "This is not who you are anymore." I felt like I was playing a caricature of my younger self with that song. It was confusing because I knew I would have liked that song when I was 24, the version that it was. I just wanted to try something different. I had a really fun time in the studio with Rob [Muinos] remaking that one. That's what really made me remember that this work is serious, but then it's also really not serious. We're just hanging around in a room with people making bleeps and bloops, making different noises and playing around.
Every song doesn't need to be a universe. That's always a bit of not necessarily criticism, but feedback I would love to give songwriters sometimes, like unsolicited advice, which everybody wants. [Laughs] A song doesn't have to tell a whole story. It can just be an idea, one idea. I think the lyrics are pretty up for interpretation, and the way we built that in the studio as well was fun because me and Rob are not computer people, but I was trying to make a song with the ethos of electronic music. We played everything in the studio, but then played around with speeding things up and chopping things up and moving things around. I felt very energized by making that song, and it kind of helped the next phase of that record.
There was a quote about really enjoying this album process, being really satisfied with it, and I was wondering if that meant that this was more satisfying than previous album cycles.
JACKLIN: Yeah, I mean — I feel like…I've never said this sentence in my life, and I'm not even sure if this is how I feel — but I was about to say, you get the album making process you deserve, or something, or you think you deserve. [Laughs] When I look back at previous experiences, I can't even really compare any of my albums because I couldn't have had the experience I had with Pre Pleasure that I had with this because I was in a completely different headspace. Each album I've made in a different place with a different producer with mainly different people, so they've all been very unique. This one was wonderful because I feel I just really like myself now, or I feel at least comfortable in myself, and I felt like I was surrounded by people who just accepted the way I do things.
My approach to making music can come often concerning to some people because it's quite chaotic. I can spend so much time on really random things. I'm either working on a verse for two years, or I'm arriving on the day I have to record it and I haven't written like the bridge yet. And it's always been like that. I can't change that. So many times I've tried to be somebody that arrives at the studio really prepared. I've never really arrived at a studio with the songs done ever and I think every other record I've felt bad about that. I felt like I was being unprofessional, and I didn't quite understand that's just my process. The way that the music sounds is informed by my unique process, and that's the only way I can do it. This was the first time where I really felt that was totally fine, and everybody was totally fine with that. I didn't feel chaotic or unprofessional. I felt like an artist who just has a specific way of doing things, and that was a really healing experience for me, as a person and as an artist. This experience was unique in that way.
The bio categorized the album’s collaborators as friends. So, I'm curious how your relationship with music and creativity versus friendship has evolved with this album?
JACKLIN: That's always a weird part of this job because even if you're not friends with people, when you start making music, you have to spend so much time with people that they ultimately will become your friends. It's just the nature of the work. But then I'm also the employer, so it's complicated and everybody struggles with it at various times. This crew [Robert Muinos, Jacob Diamond, Jess Elwood, Olaf Scott, Mimi Gilbert, Richard Bradbeer] I've toured with them. Like Mimi, who played bass, was in the Pre Pleasure band. I played music with them for a while. Jacob Diamond, I've known for 10 years. We met playing a show in Perth, and we've toured before. We've played a lot of music together. Same as Jess Elwood on drums. They played drums for me quite a bit.
I've known these people for a long time, but they're people I met through music, but became my really good friends outside of this work as well. They were just the best people for the job, but then it turns out they're also my really good friends. Things could get complicated, but we're all a bit older now. Everybody understands that you got to leave some things at the door with this job. I think when you're younger, you think, "No, I need to show up exactly how I feel, exactly as I am." But anyway — it's a delicate dance that everybody has to do that I think maturity, and more years under the hat, help to make it make more sense. But yeah, good buds. Everything's going fine so far.
I have a weird question in terms of visuals, specifically the album art, but I might really be reading this. I thought it was interesting that like Pre Pleasure and also now this album cover is subverting the presentation of yourself. I'm curious if that was intentional or if you see any connections to that, because I feel like the conversation around this album has been about Julia Jacklin performer versus like Julia Jacklin person. I see that as very well represented in your album covers.
JACKLIN: Oh, cool. I hadn't actually drawn that, but you're right, it is. [Laughs] It is a similar concept. A lot of my album covers come from really enjoying doing tactile things. With the Pre Pleasure thing people thought I was photoshopped and it was two images. But that was a photo on my TV and I'm standing in front of my TV. And I made the necklaces for The Gem, but yeah, I think that's a great observation.
I don't think my brain will ever be able to fully connect the two things. I don't think it was something that I anticipated about this job, and what it eventually does to your sense of self. It's very bizarre. Part of letting go of control is to stop trying to understand it. It is weird, my birth name is Julia Jacklin, and my musical project is also named Julia Jacklin, and I sing about my personal life, but also, you cannot do this job if you're not in some way performing a version of yourself. It's completely impossible. I would always bristle a little bit if people say, “Oh, she's herself on stage,” or something, and I'm like, "I'm standing on stage. I'm standing on a literal stage. I'm standing on a literal pedestal with lights blinding me." I can't even — there's no way you can show up and be your actual self in some way. I have to lock into something else. I'm less freaked out about that now than I was in Pre Pleasure. Now I'm bemused by it and curious about it. During Pre Pleasure I was finding that part of it maybe a bit psychologically concerning or something. [Laughs].
Do you regret, or in another world if you were to do this all over again, would you still like to go by your name, or would you have a different persona?
JACKLIN: I don't know, honestly. I reckon my name is really good, that's the problem. Julia Jacklin. I love alliteration. If I had a not very interesting name, and I used that name, I would regret that. Sometimes I try to think of what my artist name would be and I don't know. I don't know if I could come up with something better than Julia Jacklin in a way. I reckon last album cycle I would have said that very confidently. I would have said, “Absolutely. I wish I'd never used my birth name.” This time round I'm not sure. Maybe there's something interesting about using your birth name. Maybe that actually presents an interesting quandary to deal with. But I don't know. I'm very in my “I don't know” era right now.
The Gem is out 9/25 via 4AD.
