JULIA JACKLIN

Proving that self-confidence 2

is a funny thing, it’s taken almost a quarter-century for Australian singer-songwriter Julia Jacklin to feel like she might actually have something important to say. The payoff for the long lead-up to her debut album, Don’t Let the Kids Win, has been pretty much universal acclaim, the record having been hailed as a triumph everywhere from the Guardian (“lovely”) to the Australian edition of Rolling Stone (a perfect four stars). As a result, she’s been on the road constantly, scoring invites everywhere from Glastonbury to SXSW.

“I’m enjoying the travel so far, mostly because I’m getting better at sleeping upright,” Jacklin says with a laugh, speaking on her cell from Australia while waiting to board a plane to New Zealand. “That was a big challenge for me in the beginning. I was always so excited to be on a plane that it would keep me awake, and that would send me into this almost insane kind of place.”

That she’s been so in demand has surprised her, mostly because she initially thought Don’t Let the Kids Win—which found a home on the Polyvinyl Record Co.—would get nothing but a Bandcamp release. Instead, she’s been praised for her storytelling cleverness as a lyricist—courtney Barnett might be impressed by “When you saw my face in the line/said if I just focus I could get laid anytime” from “L.A. Dream”, or “Don’t let the time go by without sitting your mother down/and asking what life was like for her before you came to be around” from the title track.

Musically, comparisons have been made to the likes of Lucinda Williams, Sharon Van Etten, and Angel Olsen, all of whom the 26-year-old would fit magically with on a Spotify playlist. But still, despite Jacklin being the latest breakout artist from a country that’s been producing a lot of them, one thing comes up repeatedly with the singer. As great as everyone else thinks she is, she wonders if she deserves the acclaim.

“I dunno—it comes from so many different things that it’s hard to explain it without getting too deep,” she replies when asked about self-doubts. “I think a lot of it comes from not having ever studied music. I always felt like the least competent person in the room when I was there with my friends. I’d shoot myself in the foot a million times because I didn’t want to participate in jams or things that would help me improve. I mean, I took singing lessons, but never really delved into things too deeply. I was much more into writing than the craft of being a musician.”

Along the way, though, something changed. After graduating from high school Jacklin did time in a go-nowhere Americana-obsessed unit, spent some time travelling the world, and briefly thought about becoming a social worker. In her 20s she decided to take songwriting a bit more seriously—which eventually led her to New Zealand, where she recorded the self-financed Don’t Let the Kids Win in 2015. The surprise acclaim given the record is deserved, with Jacklin as comfortable cranking the amps for the blazing “Hay Plain” as she is going the spartan and reflective route for the lovely “Sweet Step”. And despite whatever self-doubts she once had, the singer now realizes that she’s onto something.

“It’s interesting—i’m going back to New Zealand today to the same studio where I recorded the album,” Jacklin says. “I haven’t been there since the recording, and it’s crazy to think about how different I feel now and how everything has changed. I had no idea how things were going to pan out—i was just going to release the album on my own. So to be in this position now makes me feel proud of myself.”

At peace with the past as Ryan 2

Karazija sounds on Low Roar’s new album Once in a Long, Long While, there are moments that suggest the last couple of years were challenging ones.

The Oakland-raised and Warsaw, Poland–based musician doesn’t attempt to deny this when he’s reached at a tour stop in Mexico.

“I like to keep my songs a bit of a secret, but for some reason I feel like talking about them today,” Karazija says, speaking on his cell. “You’re my therapist now. The album that I wrote begins right after my divorce. One of the songs is for my ex-wife—i’d never written a song for her, and one came out about two weeks after I moved out. That was ‘Without You’. There’s also two chapters. The first one is about one of my exes, and the other one, the second half, is kind of about this girl that I was really in love with.”

For all the darkness that bleeds through the lyrics, the record is also one of hope. Consider “Gosia”, where a soft blanket of synths and glowing acoustic guitar somehow helps create the illusion everything is okay, despite devastating lines like “Now my faith is dead while my body lays drenched in the ashes of a forgotten time/it’s hard when you come to realize someone’s path is headed elsewhere in life.”

Karazija launched Low Roar from Iceland, after moving there and recording in his kitchen. An eponymous 2011 debut suggested a passing affection for Massive Attack and Sigur Rós. A follow-up, 0, gained invaluable exposure when “I’ll Keep Coming” and “Easy Way Out” landed in trailers for the crazily anticipated upcoming video-game opus Death Stranding.

Once in a Long, Long While was created amid the wreckage of a relationship, with the singer leaving Iceland, spending time in Sweden, and then eventually decamping to Poland. Karazija channelled his emotions into songs. And now that he’s started revisiting those on the road, things are sometimes more painful than he remembers.

“I played one of the songs here yesterday on the radio,” he says. “On our first night here in Mexico I saw a bunch of friends and we all went out and I kind of woke up a bit hungover. The song that I did was one that I hadn’t performed since I did it for the record. There’s one line that goes, ‘Babe you walk your way I’ll walk mine/i’ll stop to think of you from time to time.’ I should have done something different. Sometimes I get a hangover depression, and after I was done the radio thing I was like, ‘Why did I choose to sing that song?’ ”

Choosing anything else from Once in a Long, Long While might, however, have left him equally traumatized.

“After I did the record it felt like a real release,” Karazija says. “I haven’t really gone back and listened to the record that much, and there’s a few of the songs that we’re not playing live.”

He laughs, and then continues: “I mean, I thought it was a happy record. But maybe it’s the most depressing one that I’ve made.”

Or maybe the answer is, beautifully, both.