(2022) Julia Jacklin - PRE PLEASURE

Review:
Crushing, Australian singer-songwriter Julia Jacklin‘s masterful sophomore album, opened with a song about revenge porn and bodily autonomy; “I guess it’s just my life, and it’s just my body.” We often conflate the personal with the political, especially with female songwriters, but Jacklin would insist that her songs aren’t radical. Like she said, it’s just her life. On Jacklin’s third album, PRE PLEASURE, she again mines social issues like pornography, consent and religion. But whether you label it personal, political or a combination of the two — it’s a triumph in storytelling. “In the shoes and the dress / confused by the rest / could he hear me?” Jacklin sings in the album’s opening verse; “Lydia Wears A Cross” finds Jacklin channeling her 7-year-old self in Catholic school, contemplating the existence of God as she sits in a church pew. Overtop a sparse drum machine, she wrestles the existential by zero-ing in on a very specific moment in time – a Julia Jacklin signature. The track sets the tone for an album rife with inconvenient truths, fragile dynamics and self-realizations. Jacklin has an ability to hold a mirror up to society without ever preaching. On “Ignore Tenderness”, she questions the widely and harmfully adopted attitudes around sexuality and consent — many of which are dictated by the pornography that she tries to, but can’t, enjoy. “Go put ice in your mouth / let them slap you about / go on, choke yourself out.” She unpacks the experience of foregoing tenderness for sexual exchanges that leave you feeling unsatisfied at best and violated at worst. It’s a perfect example of the way Jacklin is able to excavate an issue in a way that feels both deeply private to her and deeply personal for the listener, building solidarity through moments of casual crisis. By her own account, Jacklin is a songwriter first and a musician second, and that’s reflected in the often understated and stripped-back sound on much of PRE PLEASURE. Her lyricism and warm, harmonized vocals are the main attraction. She recorded the album in Montreal with members of the Weather Station, and enlisted former Arcade Fire collaborator Owen Pallett to provide string arrangements on several tracks. But there are certainly moments where she deviates from these folk-isms, most notably on “I Was Neon” and “Love, Try Not to Let Go”, offering listeners some gratifying garage rock release on an otherwise subdued and measured soundscape. But while the sound is often subtle, her songwriting is the opposite. Jacklin’s directness makes her intent clear, always. The most heartbreaking moment on the album is “Less of a Stranger”, about a stunted mother-daughter relationship. She sings about a gulf that can’t be bridged between a parent and child, and how the person closest to you can remain unknowable. It’s simultaneously a song of loss and acceptance, a balance that Jacklin strikes throughout the album. We often commend symbolism, allegory and even esoterism in songwriting, but the ability to craft such pointed, literal narrative deserves equal praise. “End of a Friendship”, which is about just that, further demonstrates this talent. Much of PRE PLEASURE centres around having love to give, and not knowing where to put it. But Jacklin’s love finds a landing page on “Magic” — the most optimistic track we’ve heard from her. It’s an anthem on potential and self-worth, almost like a meditation that we’re eavesdropping on (with her permission). That optimism also comes through on “Too in Love to Die” and “Be Careful with Yourself”, where she blends infatuation with fatalism. It should be no surprise that Jacklin’s version of a love song is one where she asks her partner to stop smoking so that he won’t die before her. Joni Mitchell once said that a good song happens when you graduate from a period of sensitivity and pain to a moment of clarity. That clarity is abundant on PRE PLEASURE. That’s not to say that Jacklin has all the answers — that’s an impossibility for an artist who writes from a place of questioning and curiosity — but she’s at her most self-actualized on this record. Her musings on agency, intimacy and pleasure feel simultaneously urgent and timeless. You want to play this album for yourself, for your teenage daughter, for your mom. The specificity of Jacklin’s perspective only makes her music more relatable. Pre-pandemic, the Aussie songwriter was starting to gain the international acclaim that she deserves. In 2019, Lana Del Rey flew her out to perform a duet of Jacklin’s “Don’t Know How to Keep Loving You” on her Norman Fucking Rockwell! tour. Similar to when Kendrick Lamar was publicly co-signed by Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre and The Game in 2011, this was a signal for those who hadn’t yet gotten the memo — Julia Jacklin is a unique talent. Know her. With PRE PLEASURE, Jacklin once again makes herself impossible to dismiss. She not only lives up to the hype, she deserves more of it.

Track List:
01 - Lydia Wears a Cross
02 - Love, Try Not to Let Go
03 - Ignore Tenderness
04 - I Was Neon
05 - Too in Love to Die
06 - Less of a Stranger
07 - Moviegoer
08 - Magic
09 - Be Careful with Yourself
10 - End of a Friendship


Media Report:
Genre: indie-folk, indie-rock
Country: Australia
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)


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