Q&A: JULITH Blossoms in Debut EP, ‘This Is A Kindness’
WRITTEN BY FAITH LUEVANOS
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Photo by Emily Entz (@em1wee)
LA-based artist JULITH has unveiled her stunning debut EP, This Is A Kindness. Formerly performing under Julia Pratt, the shift to JULITH serves as a stepping stone in her healing journey and provides her with an open creative field, ready to be explored.
This Is A Kindness is a collection of emotions that have been shaped and reshaped time and time again. Across the project, JULITH continues to learn more and more about herself through these songs, at the same time sharing a glimpse into her evolving sense of identity. Speaking on the EP’s title, she shared, “The title came from an episode of Doctor Who, where robots on a quarantine planet repeat the phrase ‘Do not be alarmed, this is a kindness,’ before shooting a lethal dart. The dart will save you from the plague that has ravaged the planet, but it will still kill you first.”
Blending raw vulnerability and strength, JULITH complements her honest lyricism with striking visuals. Like an orchid emerging from the rubble, each track captures the arrival of an artist fully coming into her own.
Life on Jupiter had the privilege of sitting down with JULITH to discuss this new chapter, her favorite songs, and advice for fans ahead of the EP.
LIFE ON JUPITER: Thank you so much for joining me today. As you enter this new chapter, how has changing your artist name to JULITH affected the way you approached making this EP?
JULITH: Oh my gosh, so much. I actually made the EP, and then that led to the decision for me to change my artist name. Just through sitting with the songs, I started to realize that they were pretty big for me. They just changed the way that I thought about making music. They changed the way that I thought about myself and the bounds of my artistry. Before making this project, I had a limited mindset about what I was able to do, and then all of a sudden, I had this body of work that just felt so representative of who I was at that moment. It was such a freeing experience that after the songs were done, I was just like, “This needs to be its own thing.” This feels like a period at the end of the chapter, and turning the page to a new one. Just the authenticity of the songs, I felt moved to create something new.
Where did JULITH come from? Is it a nickname?
JULITH: Yeah, it's a nickname that my best friend gave me. It’s this side of myself that comes out when we're together, where I just say exactly what's on my mind. It’s perfect, and it felt so representative of the music.
This EP has taken on a new life that amplifies the fluidity in your music and lyricism; everything feels like butter. What inspired this sound?
JULITH: This is the music that I've always wanted to make, but I just didn't really know how to articulate it sonically. A huge part of being able to accomplish that was meeting my producer, Juan Ariza. He produced this whole project with me and opened the box musically. His musicality is so expansive that he can do anything with anything. Our partnership together, him having that technical versatility, and then me coming in with all of these crazy concepts and ideas, we just melded together, and we're able to craft this world that I also feel like is really cohesive. The process of making the music felt so easy.
It was such a beautiful project with so many different layers. We see so many different sides of you within the EP, all very vulnerable and honest. Was it easy to open up in this way?
JULITH: Weirdly enough, it was kind of a mixture, because I feel like I went into the sessions for this EP knowing that I wanted to write more vulnerable songs, whether that be angry vulnerable, or heavy, sadness, pain, vulnerable, so I definitely had that openness to it. In the moments where I did find myself getting stuck emotionally, that's where Ariza and my co-writers came in to coax me out of my shell a little bit. One of the reasons I am so grateful to this project is the collaboration. I had never worked in that way before with a team of people throughout a body of work, and the relationship that we had, oh, it's so beautiful. They really just encouraged me to tap into what the purpose of each song was, and that gave me the freedom to push through my limitations and do what needed to be done.
It was so fascinating to me to hear the sonic contrast between “Will She/Won’t She” and “Monsters out of Men.” While making these songs, how or when did you know the direction you wanted them to go in?
JULITH: That's a really good question. We made “Monsters out of Men” first. Obviously, it is super heavy and straight to the point. I just wanted a song to open the project that was a little bit more playful and threatening. The vulnerability of “Monsters out of Men” is so beautiful and powerful, and I wanted to show all the different emotions that I felt going through this healing process and recovering from sexual abuse, not that it's something that you really recover from, but integrating all of that stuff. So I wanted to open the project with a little bit of a, “Am I gonna do this shit?” And I felt like the drop into that heaviness felt right, it got people into this mode of “Is she gonna do it?” And then I answer the question immediately.
It’s a great way to introduce the remainder of the EP. I love the album artwork so much. How have orchids and other floral elements come to be a part of your visual identity?
JULITH: I love all of these questions. I took and edited the cover. I am a big nature girly, but I'm allergic to nature. Kind of a running joke throughout my life is I'm covered in tattoos, and most of them are flowers because I love flowers, I love animals, you know, I like all this shit on me, and I feel like I just find so much of my peace with the cycles of nature. It reminds me that I am just a person, I'm just a living thing. I'm basically a plant, if you think about it: eating sunlight, constantly growing. Seasons change, and we weather all these different storms. The project in general just feels like such a season of my life coming to an end in a really beautiful way. So, in the cover art, I wanted to have a nature element, and I wanted that heaviness to sit within the image.
What sort of physical space do you like to create in?
JULITH: I think it changes. I write a lot on my own, and not even full songs anymore. I used to write all my songs completely solo. In the last couple of years that's shifted a little bit too, and honestly, probably through the making of this EP, I've started to love writing in a room with a producer. The ideas can manifest more quickly, and that inspires me and gets me excited about stuff. But I do love to just sit outside and write and see what comes up. I get a lot of my concepts from being outside in nature, grounding by myself, and then I love to bring that to other people to spice it up a little bit.
What are your top three favorite songs right now?
JULITH: “WET T-SHIRT” by Ruby Waters, “Gasoline” by Buck Meek, and “LIE DOWN..” by Saya Gray.
For listeners who may resonate or find pieces of themselves within this EP, what would you like to share with them about it?
JULITH: My biggest message with this is you can survive. You can get through this. For me, this EP is such a milestone within my healing journey. I spent most of my adolescence and my early 20s feeling as though I was never going to escape from under this weight of the sexual abuse that I experienced, and it just felt very all-consuming for me, which is crazy, because at the same time, nobody knew about it. It was a very solitary experience, and that was really painful for me. Recently, I've been undergoing a shift where I feel like I'm coming out the other end, and I'm excited to see what that looks like. Trauma is so nuanced, and it follows us in so many different ways, and I'm still here, and there are so many moments when I didn't think I was going to make it to this point, and I have.
I would encourage everybody who finds a piece of themselves to keep going and to talk about it. Speaking on these experiences is healing, and there's never going to be a moment when you snap, and things will just be better. I think the first step that we can all take is finding community in it, and that is exactly why I'm putting these songs out, because there's a lot of people who I know will resonate with them, unfortunately and fortunately, because I think that we can then band together and share our stories and share our love and our energy and our healing with one another, and that's where the beauty lies. So, yeah, talk about it with someone and keep fucking going.
That’s beautiful, thank you for sharing that. Is there anything else you’d like to share that we didn’t get a chance to discuss?
JULITH: Yes! I made some visuals for this EP that I’m really proud of. I released a music video for “Pure Spite” last year that was really, really fun. I just released a video last Friday for “Right From Left,” and I have a video coming out for “Monsters out of Men” that I am just so excited to share. I've just been with JULITH crafting a visual world that feels very cohesive with the project and with who I am now in my artistry, and I feel like a really big part for me in this rollout is acknowledging the visuals. There's so much energy in a visual aid, so I'd really encourage anyone who listens to the project and finds it interesting to explore those visuals as well. And there will be more coming!