In 1995, Sonic Youth, then 14 years into their profession, and on the cusp of a mainstream breakthrough, launched a brand new album, Washing Machine, that closed with a virtually 20-minute tune, “The Diamond Sea.” A lot of it’s a freeform jam of slowly unfurling guitar noise. Seemingly conscious of the unpalatableness of a double-digit operating time largely given over to suggestions, the band launched a radio edit of “Diamond Sea,” a high-quality sufficient if comparatively neutered four-minute model that cuts out the squall. Its objective was served, to a restrict: The tune did chart—although by no means increased than No. 23. Crucial success abounded, however the mass market by no means fairly caught on.
By the point the members of the Los Angeles band julie have been born (about midway between the discharge of “Diamond Sea” and Sonic Youth’s dissolution in 2011), the temporary promise of a mainstream second for tough rock music, within the wake of Nirvana’s success, was lengthy within the rearview. It was now the Obama years. Increase time for Coldplay followers, not a lot dissonance lovers.
However enter Trump, and darkish clouds got here to cross, as did middle-school commencement; in 2019, as excessive schoolers, guitarist/vocalist Keyan Pourzand, bassist/vocalist Alexandria Elizabeth, and drummer Dillon Lee, shaped julie. The band’s first single, “flutter,” was launched in 2020, a 12 months wherein proficient younger devotees of experimental rock music had loads of motive to shrink from the identified world and swath themselves in oceanic swaths of reverb.
julie emerged absolutely shaped on “flutter,” a tightly wound grunge-pop rager with Pourzand and Elizabeth buying and selling vocals, each pleasingly apathetic. That tune, like many of the remainder of their subsequent songs, was propelled by a completely ballistic drum efficiency by Lee. They have been influenced by Sonic Youth, clearly, however they’d little curiosity in that band’s atonal wandering. Julie’s energy was managed out of the gate.
Over the subsequent three years, the group launched a handful of EPs and singles, experimenting with slight shifts in sound. One tune would possibly skew extra tortured emo, one other extra triumphant shoegaze. The brusque sheen of the Large Muff pedal is ever current, however they by no means overindulge in fuzzed-out theatrics. They by no means noodle too lengthy. Just one tune on the band’s debut album, my anti-aircraft pal, clocks in at over 5 minutes—after which solely by three seconds. Plainly in a era (or two) for the reason that heyday of their most popular breed of experimental rock music, julie have mastered the duty of constructing songs that really feel sprawling and large, however which in actuality bloom and dissolve in brief order. You’ll be able to match loads of julie songs into one “Diamond Sea.” No radio edit wanted.
