Feature: Julia Wallace – Place In Mind
Late last year the world was introduced to brand new Perth-based artist, Julia Wallace and herstunning debut ‘Warm Light’. The track was received with open arms by local and international music media and quickly gained over 100,000 streams. Now, Julia releases her debut EP, featuring the title track ‘Place in Mind’ and two new songs, ‘Song About Lying’ and ‘You’ll Love Her Again‘.
Julia writes songs about girls she’s loved and her aggressive guilty conscience. Her EP was recorded during lockdown in a shack at the back of her parent’s place, using equipment she’s had since she was 12 years old. The songs were sent to Jono Steer (Angie McMahon, Leif Vollebekk, Hiatus Kaiyote) who co-produced them and worked on them remotely at The Perch Studio in Castlemaine, Victoria. Jono and Julia met for the first time in Melbourne earlier this month when Julia made a special guest performance, playing trumpet for Angie McMahon.
Julia plays all instruments on the EP with the exception of drums, which were recorded remotely by Leigh Fisher. Julia is an established multi-instrumentalist and performer in the indie and jazz scene. Her trumpet playing has seen her graduate on a scholarship to a prestigious high school, an entrance scholarship to WAAPA and recently completed an Intensive Jazz course at Brubeck Institute of Music in California. She currently plays in five local Perth bands, studies composition and is a maths and spelling tutor by day.
Julia is setting out to “make trumpet cool”, and that she is. Her first singles ‘Warm Light‘ and ‘Place In Mind‘ were added to Unearthed and received incredible reviews by triple j presenters. As well as a premiere on Home & Hosed, rotation on FBi and airplay across multiple radio stations including PBS, RTR, Radio Adelaide and NPR affiliate KSMU in the US. The songs were added to multiple editorial playlists across Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon, finding Julia new fans in Australia, US, UK, Japan and beyond, as well as attention from curious Shazamers.
The EP came about as a pressure-free release, referred to by Julia as a cathartic side-project. Julia explains, “Place In Mind is a concoction of a past Julia who really felt lost, full of guilt and just wanted to move on with things and reclaim some sense of self after a breakup. The music is made up of very simple instrumentation, stacked with layers upon layers. I was really focused on sound and how the music creates feeling even more than lyrics when writing and recording this EP. I’m really stoked with how it all sounds!”
Julia is part of a new mentorship program launched by manager Charlotte Abroms (Angie McMahon, Ainslie Wills) and manager/publicist Alyse Newman (AANTHOLOGIES). This program aims to make a contribution to supporting the next wave of teens and young artists who are setting their hearts and minds on a career in music.
