Full of loneliness, rebirth and self-acceptance, ‘The Gem’ is the true manifestation of the songwriter’s journey.

“When you get to this phase of being an artist, people have an idea of what you are and the kind of musician you are […] Is this what Julia Jacklin would do? And you’re like, Wait – I’m Julia Jacklin.” In its frankness and candour, Jacklin’s reflections on making fourth album ‘The Gem’ speak of its essential character. After releasing and touring 2022’s ‘PRE-PLEASURE’, her return to the studio was quite unconventional. Returning to Collingwood, Melbourne – the place she first made home in 2017 – she set up shop at The Gem, a local bar which had become her sanctuary during that first move to Melbourne. This small pub in Collingwood’s back streets helped her find community and friends. Aiming to record at home – something new for Jacklin – and with the assistance of an old drinking buddy, Robert Muinos (owner of the Rat Shack studios above The Gem) her plan took shape. Collaborating with friends – Muinos (studio engineer), Jacob Diamond (guitar), Mimi Gilbert (bass), and Jess Elwood (drums) – Jacklin has conjured an album that feels unprecedentedly intimate. Rich in personal anecdotes, feelings of isolation, loss, longing and love, and the deep comfort of friendship, ‘The Gem’ embraces a slow journey of self-discovery. Jacklin is figuring herself back into being in the space that brought her into being all those years ago.

Working within the confines of The Gem, the recording process adapted to fit its environment. Unable to record late into the night and constantly infiltrated by the area’s sonic background, Jacklin embraces an unpolished, experimental and therefore profound quality. The opening track, ‘Brand New’, hints at this uninhibited approach. Driven forward by a pulsating drum beat, Jacklin’s mournful lyrics are left open, penetrating the melody’s space. Phrases like “put down the knife” and “can’t afford to have an inner life” are countered by her harmonies “it won’t cut through” and “got things to do” – this declarative desire to change, to be something different. Juxtaposed against Diamond’s country style guitar line, Jacklin’s mantra to be “brand new” feels both self-affirmational and ill-fated. How do you escape the person you are when the world has witnessed this person coming into being? This grappling with the on-stage Jacklin and the true Julia Jacklin rears its head on ‘If I Had the Hand of God’. Pictured “standing in the yard, trying not to drink”, Jacklin builds a circular narrative, flitting between her “country hall of fame” and “becoming an outline to everyone you know”. This sense of isolation and loneliness is a core component of ‘The Gem’, particularly on the tracks ‘Walk On Me’ and ‘You Turned on the Tap’. The latter’s sorrowful, minor-key piano melody drifts you into this crushing sense of malaise. Trapped away from human connection, ‘You Turned On the Tap’ evokes the quietness and mourning that festers once all the noise, “running around,” and calamity stops. Filled with heartache and loss, Jacklin pulls together the “flowerbeds” and “grass” and watches them die in the aftermath.

This tension between “wanting to love and be loved but also want[ing] to feel free” has been central to Jacklin’s life. As such, this dichotomous pull between desperation and hope is embedded across ‘The Gem’, especially on the second track ‘God Sometimes’. Bursting forward with expansive drum fills and lively guitar chords, the song feels vital, Jacklin reborn and wilful. Fighting against the difficulty of existence, Jacklin recognises that “you have to be a god sometimes” to overcome. Diamond’s electric riffs and Elwood’s rolling drum fills give the track a quasi-rock undertone – an emboldened strength, a desire to live despite the hardship. As the music falls away, Jacklin’s promise to “hold out for something greater” offers a hopeful antidote to the album’s sorrowful moments. Sometimes life only moves when you make the change. This sanguine attitude is woven across the album, most prominent on the single ‘Get Away From Me (I Think I’ll Love You Soon)’. Perhaps the most upbeat track, ‘Get Away From Me’ nods to the eighties rock music that would constantly play in The Gem when Jacklin first moved to Collingwood. In its infatuated charm, the song touches on the anguish of slowly falling for someone whom you spend all your time with. Married with another country-inflected guitar riff, Jacklin’s plea to “get away from me” is wonderfully doomed. Caught in the reality of not getting away from someone you’re in love with, the track feels both personally self-reflective and universally experienced.

‘The Gem’ is an album of two halves – loneliness and isolation, paired with hope, willpower and eventual resurrection. These two opposites come together on the album’s closer, ‘I Wish’. Recorded with sibling duo Elise and Maggie Rigby of The Maes, ‘I Wish’ is a lullaby to a younger Jacklin. Opening with loose guitar strumming, Jacklin’s longing to “have better friends” and “to have help back then” bleeds out like an open wound. Yet, as the octave rises on the chorus, Jacklin’s self-determination and perseverance emerge to form a delicate acceptance of her freedom. Building in the trio’s call-and-response harmonies and guitars, Jacklin raises her head like a fledgling bird, transforming into a new shape. Her self-acceptance is twofold, at once coming through the “lies” and “cold” while recognising that it should never have been this isolating. Returning to the location that saw Jacklin’s burgeoning career, The Gem once again bears witness to her rebirth. Filtered through a continued conversation with her previous album selves, ‘The Gem’ is the true manifestation of a songwriter’s journey, defined by Jacklin’s crucial reminder to herself: “Wait – I’m Julia Jacklin.”