After over a decade of fronting the Brooklyn indie rock mainstays Sunflower Bean, Julia Cumming is going solo. Her debut album Julia is out this April via her new label home Partisan, and she's announcing it today with the lead single "My Life."
Cumming made Julia with her collaborator Brian Robert Jones (Paramore, Vampire Weekend) and producer and engineer Chris Coady (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV On The Radio, Grizzly Bear, Beach House). The album is billed as "a clear and unadorned declaration of stepping out on her own," and Cumming expands on that in a press release:
I think we all try to play into the roles that other people put on us, or that we put on ourselves, in the hopes of being accepted. To use this music as a way out of those external narratives is my dream. One of my main goals with this record was for it to sound fun, not morose. It’s the ultimate anti-cool album. It’s a joyous space for the misfits, and in particular, an album for girls like me, the ones in middle school who never fit into a neat little box. I want this record to be a place where those girls can find solace. You don’t have to be who anyone wants you to be to be enough.
While making the album, Cumming says she sought inspiration from her most formative influences, including Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon, and her “one-and-only-and-always” Brian Wilson. You can hear that retro singer-songwriter formula on the piano-heavy "My Life," a liberated, uplifting ballad that sets the album's tone : "I sing these words for me/ To hear the sound/ To let them ring/ To drown you out."
Blockbuster filmmaker Edgar Wright directed the vibrant music video for "My Life," which you can check out below along with the album's tracklist.
TRACKLIST:
01 “My Life”
02 “Revel In The Knowledge”
03 “Hollywood Communication”
04 “Please Let Me Remember This”
05 “Emotional Labor”
06 “Ruled By Fear”
07 “Fucking Closure”
08 “I Dream Of A Fire That Stays Burning When Nobody Tends To It”
09 “Do It All Again”
10 “Sounds Of A Secret”
11 “Forget The Fest”
You can also check out Cumming's rock collection on TikTok:
Julia is out 4/24 via Partisan. Pre-order it here.
