Julia Jacklin: ‘Pre Pleasure’ Review
In the first song of Pre Pleasure, Julia Jacklin mentions Princess Diana, a cultural symbol that seems to be everywhere these days: tv shows, documentaries, attached to Kristen Stewart’s face, and, unfortunately, even in political conspiracy theories. This nostalgic wave is generational. It tends to happen when the present is less than ideal, so people look back in search of what went wrong. On the song, titled “Lydia Wears A Cross,” Jacklin looks at the past and its cultural contexts, but inwardly, telling her own story. “Eyes to the board/Thoughts to our lord/We were praying for Princess Diana,” she sings over casually ambling beats, asserting herself as a contemplative songwriter that looks for answers and not only reminisces.
Rethinking your entire existence is a part of aging. Are you really this person? Is there time to change? Will you be successful in your thirties? These are the anxious ponderings on Pre Pleasure, proving that even when thirty comes, the questions remain. When Jacklin, 31, sings, “Am I gonna lose myself again?/I quite like the person that I am,” on “I Was Neon,” she is reflecting on how the passage of time can wash off the primes of youth, the pensive lyrics sweetened by chugging guitars. It’s only natural that her self-reflection should time-travel: she looks to the present on “Love, Try Not To Let Go” and to the past on “Ignore Tenderness.” Both songs are connected by a common subject matter: who she’s been to others and who she wants to be for herself.
When the singer directs her questioning at someone else, she does it through subtlety, usually saying a lot in very few words. The line “Let’s keep all our doctors appointmеnts” on “Be Careful With Yourself” understates a lifetime commitment to a partner. Then when she sings, “Ever since I left your body/Been a breathless fast swimmer on “Less Than a Stranger,” she suggests a life lived trying to impress her mother. This subdued narrative makes Pre Pleasure more than a canned indie-pop record, complimenting the production of Marcus Pasquin (The National, Arcade Fire). With all their multitudes and ambiguity, these understatements come through clean and concise verses, attesting to Jacklin’s sensibility for precise word choice.
The undertones of her speech take shape with the record’s arrangements. Jacklin slows down to address her mother on “Less Than a Stranger” and fastens the pace to talk to herself on “I Was Neon,” the latter being a clear attempt at shutting the outside noises with her fuzzy, loud guitar. She layers her hypothetical writing on “Lydia Wears A Cross” with programmed beats, holding back an ecstatic pace that comes more than halfway through the track. Put together so closely, these oscillations in tempo help Pre Pleasure stand out as Jacklin’s most sonically versatile album yet, a position before occupied by her sophomore LP, Crushing. They also answer one of the singer’s questions: the older you get, the wider your range becomes, provided you don’t settle for a specific sound.
Rating: 8.0
Listen to Pre Pleasure:
