This August Australian indie folk singer/songwriter Julia Jacklin released her third studio album, Pre Pleasure. Building on the momentum of her 2016 debut, Don’t Let the Kids Win, and 2019’s Crushing, Pre Pleasure sounds to be the 8-time ARIA-nominated musician’s most intimate and unrestrained yet, and its critical acclaim has been nearly universal. A.V. Club said, “Julia Jacklin has always had a way of making her listeners feel chosen, as if they were wrapped up with her in a honey-colored cocoon, miles from any other soul,” while Exclaim! adds, “With PRE PLEASURE, Jacklin once again makes herself impossible to dismiss. She not only lives up to the hype, she deserves more of it.”
While Pre Pleasure sounds like an organic follow-up to Crushing (and was conceived in Montreal, immediately following the Crushing world tour), Julia has said that the process behind this one was a little different: “Making a record to me has always just been about the experience, a new experience in a new place with a new person at the desk, taking the plunge and just seeing what happens. For the first time I stepped away from the guitar and wrote a lot of the album on the Roland keyboard in my apartment in Montreal with its inbuilt band tracks. I blu-tacked reams of butcher paper to the walls, covered in lyrics and ideas, praying to the music gods that my brain would arrange everything in time.”
We were supposed to get [I’m assuming] a live preview of some of the tracks from Pre Pleasure this February, when Jacklin was set to open The Met for fellow-Aussie Courtney Barnett, before a last-minute COVID incident cancelled the appearance. However, Julia Jacklin has played a number of noteworthy shows in the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection over the years, from shows supporting both Mitski and Andy Shauf at Union Transfer (respectively), a night opening the mega-stage of the Fillmore for First Aid Kit, and a headlining show at The Foundry. And next Tuesday, October 11th, she will be returning to Union Transfer for her biggest local headlining show yet. Although Jacklin wasn’t available to chat about her most recent effort, before you come out (and you should come out…), read our chat from September of 2016, just prior to the release of Don’t Let the Kids Win and her very first Philly show, which had her opening for Marlon Williams to a crowd of about 20 at Boot & Saddle, a show which surely earned bragging rights for those few of us in attendance.
*Get your tickets here.
