Julia Jacklin
The Gem
Album · Alternative · 2026 · 4AD · Just dropped! Listen now
“The last couple of years have been transformative,” Melbourne singer-songwriter Julia Jacklin tells Apple Music. “It’s so simple and so embarrassing to say, but I just slowed down.”
A busy 2024 (residencies, tours, “all these bizarre things”) was meant to precede an even bigger 2025, starting with recording this album in 10 days. The quick turnaround had worked just fine the last three times, after all. But something shifted. Firstly, right after recording came a reckoning: “You don’t like it. And you don’t have to explain why you don’t like it,” she says. “The worst thing you can do as a musician is put out songs you don’t like yourself.”
Then, emotional and personal realizations started spilling out. “I was quite humbled by life. There were things I couldn’t process quick enough. It’s literally the first time where I was suddenly more worried about not having a good life, not having good relationships, not making good work than I was about running out of time.”
So she hit the brakes. Along with Robert Muiños, with whom she recorded the album (his studio is directly above the album’s namesake pub, The Gem), she went back in for 11 months. The period not only resulted in an album she actually loves, it also enabled significant personal learnings, while allowing Jacklin to reconnect with her love of music. “I was more intentional about who I’m around, who’s in my workspace, my personal life,” she says. Below, Jacklin talks through each song on her fourth album.
“Brand New”
“It was initially this full-band country rock song with different lyrics, but I realized I didn’t like that version, and that’s the only thing I can rely on: I have to like things. I think I realized I was a bit off when a couple people said they liked it, and I was like, ‘Well, they like it, so maybe it’s good?’ So we reimagined the song and had a really fun time in the studio. Recording that song reminded me of how much creating music is about just playing around. It opened up a lot of things for me, it reminded me I’m allowed to have fun, and that I need to trust myself.”
“God Sometimes”
“I wrote it during an artist residency in Iceland. I’m using god as a metaphor. It’s about those moments where you think, ‘If I just change this little bit here, and diminish myself here, and position myself this way here, maybe I can improve this situation without having to go scorched earth.’ But you also know you’re eventually going to have to backburn and start again. So it’s hyping myself up, reminding myself: you know what you have to do, and it’ll be better if you do this.”
“If I Had the Hand of God”
“If I have a few weeks between shows I usually won’t come home. It’s too much, I don’t like flying. But it means I have a lot of these odd, liminal-space periods where I’m somewhere strange, often by myself, waiting to start again. I wrote this during once of those periods in Nashville. I was really questioning the cost of this job to my relationships, to being able to have roots. You spend so much time away, then you come home where lives continue, relationships deepen, and I often feel like I’m just floating in space.”
“The Hardest Thing”
“I’d initially imagined this as a duet, but I’m singing both parts and that’s up for interpretation. It’s painful to be accused of not giving enough love when it’s actually like, ‘I’m doing everything I can to make you feel loved. You don’t seem able to receive it because you don’t think you’re worthy of love.’ It’s really sad, but no amount of love can be poured into that. The song’s about getting to the end of that experience and feeling like, ‘I’m not the villain here. I really did try everything I could.’”
“Angel Vision”
“It’s a companion song to ‘Walk on Me.’ It’s a conversation with myself, coming from a place of curiosity and tenderness, trying to figure out why I stayed in situations that weren’t good for me. I’m checking in and gently asking, ‘Why did you feel like you deserved that? What’s my own responsibility there?’ The complicity that I have with my own oppression in certain situations. I don’t want to have those experiences again, so it requires some tough talk and some real deep examining.”
“Real Life”
“I think people see me more as a lyricist, but I love rhythm, I’m very sensitive to it. Music is meant to make us feel stuff, including in our body. I think a lot of people like me can struggle to connect the head to the body when we’re big ruminators. So this was just a really fun exercise in exploring different rhythms and instrumentation.”
“Get Away From Me (I Think I’ll Love You Soon)”
“I’d originally written it for my friend Tom to sing, and that can give me freedom to write something I typically wouldn’t for myself. I’d just started dating someone and was walking to their house when the song just popped into my head. I can still see the street I was walking down in Clifton Hill when it happened. There’s an exuberance and joy here, and it’s like I didn’t write it, it was just handed to me.”
“You Turned on the Tap”
“Sometimes we can stress about somebody thinking certain things about us, like being annoyed at us for not showing up. It’s felt louder in the past, when I had people in my life who didn’t give me the benefit of the doubt, or didn’t take the time to see me for who I was. This song is an ode to the people who do. It’s like, you came over and watered the grass, even though I wasn’t doing well and I couldn’t show up. But you love me, and you know me, and you care for me.”
“Walk on Me”
“It’s a tough one, emotionally: a ‘two chords and the truth’ song. Recording it opened something up for me. Sometimes you spend so long getting the levels right, and everyone’s wearing headphones, and by the time you actually start playing, you’re too self-conscious. With this one, Rob encouraged us not to wear headphones and to be present with each other in the room. It’s the longest song I’ve ever recorded, and I got to fully lose myself in it.”
“I Wish” (feat. The Maes)
“I’m basically being a parent to my 15-year-old self and a friend to my 27-year-old self. And giving myself grace around two very difficult periods of my life where I always say, ‘Oh, but I got through it and that’s why I became who I am.’ This song is me being like, ‘That can be true, but also, you deserved to have more support. You deserved more in those moments.’”
A busy 2024 (residencies, tours, “all these bizarre things”) was meant to precede an even bigger 2025, starting with recording this album in 10 days. The quick turnaround had worked just fine the last three times, after all. But something shifted. Firstly, right after recording came a reckoning: “You don’t like it. And you don’t have to explain why you don’t like it,” she says. “The worst thing you can do as a musician is put out songs you don’t like yourself.”
Then, emotional and personal realizations started spilling out. “I was quite humbled by life. There were things I couldn’t process quick enough. It’s literally the first time where I was suddenly more worried about not having a good life, not having good relationships, not making good work than I was about running out of time.”
So she hit the brakes. Along with Robert Muiños, with whom she recorded the album (his studio is directly above the album’s namesake pub, The Gem), she went back in for 11 months. The period not only resulted in an album she actually loves, it also enabled significant personal learnings, while allowing Jacklin to reconnect with her love of music. “I was more intentional about who I’m around, who’s in my workspace, my personal life,” she says. Below, Jacklin talks through each song on her fourth album.
“Brand New”
“It was initially this full-band country rock song with different lyrics, but I realized I didn’t like that version, and that’s the only thing I can rely on: I have to like things. I think I realized I was a bit off when a couple people said they liked it, and I was like, ‘Well, they like it, so maybe it’s good?’ So we reimagined the song and had a really fun time in the studio. Recording that song reminded me of how much creating music is about just playing around. It opened up a lot of things for me, it reminded me I’m allowed to have fun, and that I need to trust myself.”
“God Sometimes”
“I wrote it during an artist residency in Iceland. I’m using god as a metaphor. It’s about those moments where you think, ‘If I just change this little bit here, and diminish myself here, and position myself this way here, maybe I can improve this situation without having to go scorched earth.’ But you also know you’re eventually going to have to backburn and start again. So it’s hyping myself up, reminding myself: you know what you have to do, and it’ll be better if you do this.”
“If I Had the Hand of God”
“If I have a few weeks between shows I usually won’t come home. It’s too much, I don’t like flying. But it means I have a lot of these odd, liminal-space periods where I’m somewhere strange, often by myself, waiting to start again. I wrote this during once of those periods in Nashville. I was really questioning the cost of this job to my relationships, to being able to have roots. You spend so much time away, then you come home where lives continue, relationships deepen, and I often feel like I’m just floating in space.”
“The Hardest Thing”
“I’d initially imagined this as a duet, but I’m singing both parts and that’s up for interpretation. It’s painful to be accused of not giving enough love when it’s actually like, ‘I’m doing everything I can to make you feel loved. You don’t seem able to receive it because you don’t think you’re worthy of love.’ It’s really sad, but no amount of love can be poured into that. The song’s about getting to the end of that experience and feeling like, ‘I’m not the villain here. I really did try everything I could.’”
“Angel Vision”
“It’s a companion song to ‘Walk on Me.’ It’s a conversation with myself, coming from a place of curiosity and tenderness, trying to figure out why I stayed in situations that weren’t good for me. I’m checking in and gently asking, ‘Why did you feel like you deserved that? What’s my own responsibility there?’ The complicity that I have with my own oppression in certain situations. I don’t want to have those experiences again, so it requires some tough talk and some real deep examining.”
“Real Life”
“I think people see me more as a lyricist, but I love rhythm, I’m very sensitive to it. Music is meant to make us feel stuff, including in our body. I think a lot of people like me can struggle to connect the head to the body when we’re big ruminators. So this was just a really fun exercise in exploring different rhythms and instrumentation.”
“Get Away From Me (I Think I’ll Love You Soon)”
“I’d originally written it for my friend Tom to sing, and that can give me freedom to write something I typically wouldn’t for myself. I’d just started dating someone and was walking to their house when the song just popped into my head. I can still see the street I was walking down in Clifton Hill when it happened. There’s an exuberance and joy here, and it’s like I didn’t write it, it was just handed to me.”
“You Turned on the Tap”
“Sometimes we can stress about somebody thinking certain things about us, like being annoyed at us for not showing up. It’s felt louder in the past, when I had people in my life who didn’t give me the benefit of the doubt, or didn’t take the time to see me for who I was. This song is an ode to the people who do. It’s like, you came over and watered the grass, even though I wasn’t doing well and I couldn’t show up. But you love me, and you know me, and you care for me.”
“Walk on Me”
“It’s a tough one, emotionally: a ‘two chords and the truth’ song. Recording it opened something up for me. Sometimes you spend so long getting the levels right, and everyone’s wearing headphones, and by the time you actually start playing, you’re too self-conscious. With this one, Rob encouraged us not to wear headphones and to be present with each other in the room. It’s the longest song I’ve ever recorded, and I got to fully lose myself in it.”
“I Wish” (feat. The Maes)
“I’m basically being a parent to my 15-year-old self and a friend to my 27-year-old self. And giving myself grace around two very difficult periods of my life where I always say, ‘Oh, but I got through it and that’s why I became who I am.’ This song is me being like, ‘That can be true, but also, you deserved to have more support. You deserved more in those moments.’”
The Gem
Julia Jacklin
“The last couple of years have been transformative,” Melbourne singer-songwriter Julia Jacklin tells Apple Music. “It’s so simple and so embarrassing to say, but I just slowed down.”
A busy 2024 (residencies, tours, “all these bizarre things”) was meant to precede an even bigger 2025, starting with recording this album in 10 days. The quick turnaround had worked just fine the last three times, after all. But something shifted. Firstly, right after recording came a reckoning: “You don’t like it. And you don’t have to explain why you don’t like it,” she says. “The worst thing you can do as a musician is put out songs you don’t like yourself.”
Then, emotional and personal realizations started spilling out. “I was quite humbled by life. There were things I couldn’t process quick enough. It’s literally the first time where I was suddenly more worried about not having a good life, not having good relationships, not making good work than I was about running out of time.”
So she hit the brakes. Along with Robert Muiños, with whom she recorded the album (his studio is directly above the album’s namesake pub, The Gem), she went back in for 11 months. The period not only resulted in an album she actually loves, it also enabled significant personal learnings, while allowing Jacklin to reconnect with her love of music. “I was more intentional about who I’m around, who’s in my workspace, my personal life,” she says. Below, Jacklin talks through each song on her fourth album.
“Brand New”
“It was initially this full-band country rock song with different lyrics, but I realized I didn’t like that version, and that’s the only thing I can rely on: I have to like things. I think I realized I was a bit off when a couple people said they liked it, and I was like, ‘Well, they like it, so maybe it’s good?’ So we reimagined the song and had a really fun time in the studio. Recording that song reminded me of how much creating music is about just playing around. It opened up a lot of things for me, it reminded me I’m allowed to have fun, and that I need to trust myself.”
“God Sometimes”
“I wrote it during an artist residency in Iceland. I’m using god as a metaphor. It’s about those moments where you think, ‘If I just change this little bit here, and diminish myself here, and position myself this way here, maybe I can improve this situation without having to go scorched earth.’ But you also know you’re eventually going to have to backburn and start again. So it’s hyping myself up, reminding myself: you know what you have to do, and it’ll be better if you do this.”
“If I Had the Hand of God”
“If I have a few weeks between shows I usually won’t come home. It’s too much, I don’t like flying. But it means I have a lot of these odd, liminal-space periods where I’m somewhere strange, often by myself, waiting to start again. I wrote this during once of those periods in Nashville. I was really questioning the cost of this job to my relationships, to being able to have roots. You spend so much time away, then you come home where lives continue, relationships deepen, and I often feel like I’m just floating in space.”
“The Hardest Thing”
“I’d initially imagined this as a duet, but I’m singing both parts and that’s up for interpretation. It’s painful to be accused of not giving enough love when it’s actually like, ‘I’m doing everything I can to make you feel loved. You don’t seem able to receive it because you don’t think you’re worthy of love.’ It’s really sad, but no amount of love can be poured into that. The song’s about getting to the end of that experience and feeling like, ‘I’m not the villain here. I really did try everything I could.’”
“Angel Vision”
“It’s a companion song to ‘Walk on Me.’ It’s a conversation with myself, coming from a place of curiosity and tenderness, trying to figure out why I stayed in situations that weren’t good for me. I’m checking in and gently asking, ‘Why did you feel like you deserved that? What’s my own responsibility there?’ The complicity that I have with my own oppression in certain situations. I don’t want to have those experiences again, so it requires some tough talk and some real deep examining.”
“Real Life”
“I think people see me more as a lyricist, but I love rhythm, I’m very sensitive to it. Music is meant to make us feel stuff, including in our body. I think a lot of people like me can struggle to connect the head to the body when we’re big ruminators. So this was just a really fun exercise in exploring different rhythms and instrumentation.”
“Get Away From Me (I Think I’ll Love You Soon)”
“I’d originally written it for my friend Tom to sing, and that can give me freedom to write something I typically wouldn’t for myself. I’d just started dating someone and was walking to their house when the song just popped into my head. I can still see the street I was walking down in Clifton Hill when it happened. There’s an exuberance and joy here, and it’s like I didn’t write it, it was just handed to me.”
“You Turned on the Tap”
“Sometimes we can stress about somebody thinking certain things about us, like being annoyed at us for not showing up. It’s felt louder in the past, when I had people in my life who didn’t give me the benefit of the doubt, or didn’t take the time to see me for who I was. This song is an ode to the people who do. It’s like, you came over and watered the grass, even though I wasn’t doing well and I couldn’t show up. But you love me, and you know me, and you care for me.”
“Walk on Me”
“It’s a tough one, emotionally: a ‘two chords and the truth’ song. Recording it opened something up for me. Sometimes you spend so long getting the levels right, and everyone’s wearing headphones, and by the time you actually start playing, you’re too self-conscious. With this one, Rob encouraged us not to wear headphones and to be present with each other in the room. It’s the longest song I’ve ever recorded, and I got to fully lose myself in it.”
“I Wish” (feat. The Maes)
“I’m basically being a parent to my 15-year-old self and a friend to my 27-year-old self. And giving myself grace around two very difficult periods of my life where I always say, ‘Oh, but I got through it and that’s why I became who I am.’ This song is me being like, ‘That can be true, but also, you deserved to have more support. You deserved more in those moments.’”
A busy 2024 (residencies, tours, “all these bizarre things”) was meant to precede an even bigger 2025, starting with recording this album in 10 days. The quick turnaround had worked just fine the last three times, after all. But something shifted. Firstly, right after recording came a reckoning: “You don’t like it. And you don’t have to explain why you don’t like it,” she says. “The worst thing you can do as a musician is put out songs you don’t like yourself.”
Then, emotional and personal realizations started spilling out. “I was quite humbled by life. There were things I couldn’t process quick enough. It’s literally the first time where I was suddenly more worried about not having a good life, not having good relationships, not making good work than I was about running out of time.”
So she hit the brakes. Along with Robert Muiños, with whom she recorded the album (his studio is directly above the album’s namesake pub, The Gem), she went back in for 11 months. The period not only resulted in an album she actually loves, it also enabled significant personal learnings, while allowing Jacklin to reconnect with her love of music. “I was more intentional about who I’m around, who’s in my workspace, my personal life,” she says. Below, Jacklin talks through each song on her fourth album.
“Brand New”
“It was initially this full-band country rock song with different lyrics, but I realized I didn’t like that version, and that’s the only thing I can rely on: I have to like things. I think I realized I was a bit off when a couple people said they liked it, and I was like, ‘Well, they like it, so maybe it’s good?’ So we reimagined the song and had a really fun time in the studio. Recording that song reminded me of how much creating music is about just playing around. It opened up a lot of things for me, it reminded me I’m allowed to have fun, and that I need to trust myself.”
“God Sometimes”
“I wrote it during an artist residency in Iceland. I’m using god as a metaphor. It’s about those moments where you think, ‘If I just change this little bit here, and diminish myself here, and position myself this way here, maybe I can improve this situation without having to go scorched earth.’ But you also know you’re eventually going to have to backburn and start again. So it’s hyping myself up, reminding myself: you know what you have to do, and it’ll be better if you do this.”
“If I Had the Hand of God”
“If I have a few weeks between shows I usually won’t come home. It’s too much, I don’t like flying. But it means I have a lot of these odd, liminal-space periods where I’m somewhere strange, often by myself, waiting to start again. I wrote this during once of those periods in Nashville. I was really questioning the cost of this job to my relationships, to being able to have roots. You spend so much time away, then you come home where lives continue, relationships deepen, and I often feel like I’m just floating in space.”
“The Hardest Thing”
“I’d initially imagined this as a duet, but I’m singing both parts and that’s up for interpretation. It’s painful to be accused of not giving enough love when it’s actually like, ‘I’m doing everything I can to make you feel loved. You don’t seem able to receive it because you don’t think you’re worthy of love.’ It’s really sad, but no amount of love can be poured into that. The song’s about getting to the end of that experience and feeling like, ‘I’m not the villain here. I really did try everything I could.’”
“Angel Vision”
“It’s a companion song to ‘Walk on Me.’ It’s a conversation with myself, coming from a place of curiosity and tenderness, trying to figure out why I stayed in situations that weren’t good for me. I’m checking in and gently asking, ‘Why did you feel like you deserved that? What’s my own responsibility there?’ The complicity that I have with my own oppression in certain situations. I don’t want to have those experiences again, so it requires some tough talk and some real deep examining.”
“Real Life”
“I think people see me more as a lyricist, but I love rhythm, I’m very sensitive to it. Music is meant to make us feel stuff, including in our body. I think a lot of people like me can struggle to connect the head to the body when we’re big ruminators. So this was just a really fun exercise in exploring different rhythms and instrumentation.”
“Get Away From Me (I Think I’ll Love You Soon)”
“I’d originally written it for my friend Tom to sing, and that can give me freedom to write something I typically wouldn’t for myself. I’d just started dating someone and was walking to their house when the song just popped into my head. I can still see the street I was walking down in Clifton Hill when it happened. There’s an exuberance and joy here, and it’s like I didn’t write it, it was just handed to me.”
“You Turned on the Tap”
“Sometimes we can stress about somebody thinking certain things about us, like being annoyed at us for not showing up. It’s felt louder in the past, when I had people in my life who didn’t give me the benefit of the doubt, or didn’t take the time to see me for who I was. This song is an ode to the people who do. It’s like, you came over and watered the grass, even though I wasn’t doing well and I couldn’t show up. But you love me, and you know me, and you care for me.”
“Walk on Me”
“It’s a tough one, emotionally: a ‘two chords and the truth’ song. Recording it opened something up for me. Sometimes you spend so long getting the levels right, and everyone’s wearing headphones, and by the time you actually start playing, you’re too self-conscious. With this one, Rob encouraged us not to wear headphones and to be present with each other in the room. It’s the longest song I’ve ever recorded, and I got to fully lose myself in it.”
“I Wish” (feat. The Maes)
“I’m basically being a parent to my 15-year-old self and a friend to my 27-year-old self. And giving myself grace around two very difficult periods of my life where I always say, ‘Oh, but I got through it and that’s why I became who I am.’ This song is me being like, ‘That can be true, but also, you deserved to have more support. You deserved more in those moments.’”
