at a glance...

Hometown: New Plymouth, New Zealand
Debut: 1999

Members:
Julia Darling -vocals, acoustic guitar, percussion
Patrick Warren -chamberlin, keyboards, harp, piano
Jon Brion -electric guitar
Victor Indrizzo -drums
Jonathan Norton -drums, pecussion
John Pierce -bass
Curtis Mathewson -acoustic and electric guitar
Tony Berg -bass, harmonica, piano, percussion, autoharp
Martin Tillman -cello

Notes:
Julia Darling, orginally from New Zealand, began her singing career as a street performer in Melbourne, Australia. She was discovered by a record company executive on the streets where she was earning money to buy food and pay rent. She acquired a manager, and Darling soon released an independently produced EP in Australia. The right people heard it and Julia was soon flown to the United States where she now resides in New York. A record deal with Wind-Up Records ensued, and Julia worked with some of the best minds in the business for Figure 8.

Figure 8 is Julia Darling's debut release, and in a case of art imitating life, this former street busker from New Zealand transplanted in New York, is all over the map. This diversity is not a complaint mind you, as there's not an unpleasant example of Julia's music in evidence. Quite frankly, there's a spectacular beauty in the ambitious expansiveness of this offering. Too often, we try to define an artist by a particular style. You are just as likely to find organs, cellos, bagpipes and harps adorning these tracks as electric guitar and drums.

On "Bulletproof Belief," Julia soars with vocal confidence kept aloft in part by the masterful Jon Brion on electric guitar. Indeed, her indominatable will seems almost palpable. The stacatto "Soak Me" is an infectious and lively request for nurturing and rejuvenation. The smolderingly caustic "I Will Bury You" provides a glimpse of pain that you might not expect to find in so young a woman. Despite all her bravura in those tunes, Darling belies her vulnerability and trepidation in ethereal ballads like "Grace" when she ponders, "I fear the day they use my heart/I swear the day they use my heart/We lose the way, we fall apart." No one could ever accuse this eclectic artist of being derivative or borrowing too much from one any source, though she admits her Kate Bush influences -- apparent on the brooding "Crinolines and Waltzing."

In the end, Figure 8, poses some pretty heavy questions coming from the 22 year-old singer. While Darling doesn't profess to have the answers, by the end of this lyrical journey, she establishes that maybe the answers just are not all that important. When Darling delivers the line "looking skywards when all I need is here," you get the impression that this artist just might be onto something: Whatever philosophy you espouse, you've been given all the resources to succeed within yourself. If she reaches any conclusions, it is that self-reliance provides the truest path. And how sweet it is.

If you like Julia Darling, check out:
Jill Sobule Pink Pearl
Sam Phillips Martinis & Bikinis
Kate Bush Hounds of Love
Aimee Mann Bachelor No.2
Aimee Mann Whatever

-- Paul Barras