Julia Cumming – Julia review • DIY Magazine

This debut solo report by Sunflower Bean frontwoman Julia Cumming is ostensibly an try to stylistically put clear blue water between herself and the band, though followers of the New York City trio can have famous that she was already within the means of exploring new avenues on their most up-to-date report, final April’s ‘Mortal Primetime’. A straight line may be drawn between that album’s ‘I Knew Love’ – a observe which supplied a nightly lighters-in-the-air second when Sunflower Bean opened for Wolf Alice in UK arenas final December – and ‘My Life’, the confessional, frivolously bluesy piano ballad that opens ‘Julia’.

From there, the divergence from her band’s pacy, hook-pushed indie rock blueprint is pronounced. This is an entire change of tempo for Cumming, who takes his cues from corridor-of-fame degree American songwriters like Burt Bacharach, Harry Nilsson and particularly Brian Wilson; The Beach Boys cling heavy over the album’s thought of, good-looking pop songs, notably on ‘Please Let Me Remember This’. Elsewhere, there’s greater than a contact of Laurel Canyon, and particularly Joni Mitchell, to ‘Emotional Labor’ and ‘Sounds of a Secret’, and by way of the album’s emotional tenor, her pop palette finds room for each breeziness (‘Hollywood Communication’) and quiet drama (‘Fucking Closure’). This is a remarkably assured transfer into a really completely different sonic panorama for Cumming – a heartfelt love letter to some traditional influences.