Album of the Week: Julia Jacklin rises to the top on ‘Pre Pleasure’
It doesn’t take very long to get totally engrossed in the music of Julia Jacklin. Anyone who’s taken a dive into the Australian singer-songwriter’s previous two albums, 2016’s Don’t Let the Kids Win and 2019’s Crushing, knows that Jacklin’s writing is ripe with trials, tribulations, and triumphs. All the while, it’s the euphoric joy of her musical style that makes these stories so engrossing in the first place. With every new release, Jacklin is perfecting the balance between astounding lyrical content and ecstatic musical release.
Pre Pleasure doesn’t need endless amounts of prose, metaphors, and detailed storytelling to show that Jacklin is hitting a new peak in her songwriting. Instead, she can simply repeat “Am I gonna lose myself again” in ‘I Was Neon’ or let the title word in ‘Magic’ drip in all its languid glory. Every syllable seems to have an entire lifetime of history behind it.
It’s hard not to take note of the doom-laden imagery that flows throughout Pre Pleasure. Jacklin was never exactly a happy-go-lucky songwriter, but talk of planes going down in ‘Too In Love To Die’ and ships sinking into the sea in ‘Moviegoer’ certainly make for a dark final product. Jacklin seems to consciously counteract that moroseness with upbeat compositions throughout most of the album, but not always.
‘Less of a Stranger’, for instance, keeps its musical accompaniment sparse as tales of family divisions play out in heartbreaking starkness. How the song ties into its follow-up, ‘Moviegoer’, with its talk of entertainment and broken ties, illustrates that Jacklin is looking at Pre Pleasure as a whole piece rather than a random collection of songs. Going through the album sequentially is a purposeful journey, one crafted with love, intention, and an incredible eye for detail.
‘Moviegoer’ gets meta on the relationship between personal art and public product (“$20 million dollars / Still nobody understands you”). It’s hard to tell whether Jacklin is taking the piss out of pretentious artists or embodying the struggle to be heard, but the ambiguity is actually the best part – it’s a “choose your own adventure” kind of song, and as the money gets bigger, so too does the disconnect. Only accidentally running into a stranger causes any kind of feeling to crop up.
As Pre Pleasures enters its final stretch, Jacklin looks both towards the future and into the past. ‘Be Careful With Yourself’ brings back the religious imagery from ‘Lydia Wears a Cross’ and the lovestruck attitude of ‘Too In Love To Die’ to try and preserve a love on the verge of imminent destruction. When contrasted with the outpouring of lost love and grief that spills across the lines of ‘End of a Friendship’, Jacklin seems unsure of whether anything is actually going right.
All the while, beautiful layers of strings and melancholy harmonies make the sadness pouring through these songs all the more bittersweet. Jacklin doesn’t shy away from going big throughout the album, but it never takes the form of bombast. Each new layer heightens the personal stories that Jacklin tells, to the point where you can physically feel yourself leaning in to make sure you don’t miss a single word.
The important distinction is that Jacklin never plays into the “confessional” songwriter trope. The subjects throughout Pre Pleasure could certainly be real, but they are also vague enough to apply to just about anyone who is listening to the album. Who doesn’t have that family member they don’t call or that destructive personality that they want to protect? The important thing is not that the topics are coming from Jacklin’s real life, but rather that the subjects are universal enough for them to filter into everyone’s unique story. Pre Pleasure is an album written by one person but made for everyone.
Pre Pleasure is less a magnum opus and more a statement of confirmation that Jacklin is among the best at what she does. That includes writing incredible melodies and ear-catching compositions, but most impressively, it’s creating fascinating lyrical stories that are made to get lost in. World building is essential for any piece of art worth obsessing over, and with the incredible depth surrounding each and every song on Pre Pleasure, Jacklin proves that she’s an artist worth falling in love with.
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