Sunflower Bean’s Julia Cumming announces debut solo album ‘Julia’, shares Edgar Wright-directed video for reflective single ‘My Life’
Sunflower Bean’s Julia Cumming has shared details of a debut solo album, and released the first taster of the record in the form of reflective single, ‘My Life’.
The new album will mark the singer’s first as a solo artist, having made a name for herself as part of the New York band Sunflower Bean. Titled ‘Julia’, it will be released on April 24th via Partisan Records, and is available to pre-order here.
According to Cumming, the album marks the start of a new chapter for her, and sees her stepping into the spotlight on her own with a reinvigorated sense of purpose. She also reveals that the album was made after a transformative three year journey of self-actualisation and dream fulfilment, and is more of a full creative rebirth than a simple rebrand.
Today (Thursday February 19), the singer has shared the first taster of the record in the form of the lead single ‘My Life’.
Led by a captivating piano melody, the song sees Cumming sing: “I sing these words for me/ To hear the sound/ To let them ring/ To drown you out.”
“This song came after a period of intense pressure, the culmination of writing through the pandemic and the years spent in the rhythm of touring, recording, and trying to find my place within it all…Then something shifted,” she said in a new statement. “It was liberation, and I knew immediately it was the beginning of something new. It’s clear ‘My Life’’ would open the album, because it’s the thesis. The seed that started everything.”
It also comes with a video that was filmed in London this winter and directed by celebrated English filmmaker Edgar Wright. Check it out below.
As for the album as a whole, ‘Julia’ was completed over a six week period in Los Angeles with her collaborator Brian Robert Jones (Paramore, Vampire Weekend) and producer and engineer Chris Coady (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV On The Radio).
It also saw her with a new studio band, and leaning into influences from Carol King, Neil Diamond, Joni Mitchell, Brian Wilson and more.
“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,” Cummings explained. “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,” she added. “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.”
The singer will be playing a handful of solo shows later this spring to celebrate the forthcoming album. These kick off at Public Records in New York City on April 28, and continue at Masonic Lodge in Los Angeles two nights later (30).
From there, she will play Moth Club in London, YES in Manchester, Mikropol in Berlin and L’Archipel in Paris on May 12, 13 18 and 20 respectively. Visit here for tickets.
The new solo album comes following Sunflower Bean announcing their latest album, ‘Mortal Primetime’, last year. It marked the fourth studio album from the rock group and the long-awaited follow-up to their ‘Headful Of Sugar’ album, which arrived three years prior.
The band also spoke to NME about the record, and revealed how it came together after a tumultuous period.
“We never really even spent time apart,” says drummer Olive Faber. “I think [the tension came from] acknowledging differences for the first time and then the awkwardness that came with that, and trying to move through and keep going.” She cites those differences as “artistic” ones, and that subsequent discomfort springs from “when you do something for a long time and [don’t] really pay attention to how you’re actually feeling.”
The post Sunflower Bean’s Julia Cumming announces debut solo album ‘Julia’, shares Edgar Wright-directed video for reflective single ‘My Life’ appeared first on NME.
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