Julia, Julia Embraces the Ethereal With Debut Solo Album ‘Derealization’

Q&AMusic

Oct 19

☆ Makena Alquist ☆

SHE’S NOT USED TO BEING QUIET — but after spending more than a decade screaming as founding member and vocalist of the garage punk band The Coathangers, Julia Kugel is ready to try something new. With her debut solo album Derealization under the artist name Julia, Julia, the singer-songwriter explores her quieter side with a beautifully ethereal, dream pop sound.

“[Releasing a solo album] feels vulnerable but also really important and cathartic,” Kugel says. “I gained a big appreciation for all the collaboration by being by myself, but I also found so much strength and overcame all of these mental obstacles I had for myself.”

A solo album in every sense of the word, Kugel plays all of the instruments and did all of the sound engineering for the record, something she had never done before.

“I messed up a bunch,” she laughs. “I always thought it was like, ‘Oh, I could do it, I could do anything,’ but then I was like, ‘Oh, crap … I should read a book or talk to someone or something.’”

Her relentless commitment to figuring it out shines through on the record as the hazy blend of echoey vocals, acoustic guitar, and hypnotic drums create a perfect blend of a dark and angelic sound.

“It was very good for me to just keep with it, to get to the finish line even when it's frustrating,” she explains. “Playing the instruments was awesome, just because I love playing a lot of different instruments and I love challenging myself.”

The record deals with these themes of self-reliance head-on as Kugel navigated out of a difficult time during its production. Created on the heels of the worst parts of the pandemic and just as she regained her voice after an injury, Kugel faces the tumultuous emotions of the last two years throughout the album.

“‘Derealization’ means not knowing what reality is, and 2020 in general was like that — I don't think anyone knew what was real and what was not real,” she says. “It describes the state I was in, fumbling around for some kind of truth that I could really stand behind… And then I found out what was real — my family, it's real. Sometimes you have to go all the way around to come back to that thing that you knew all along.”

Kugel also took the reins when it came to creating the music videos for the album. With directing and editing credits across all three videos, she worked with several photographers as well as her husband, editor Scott Montoya, to create the visual style for the record.

“I worked with these amazing female photographers who usually shot photos, but then I was like, ‘Let's try video stuff,’” she describes. “So we were all finding our sea legs as we were doing this, and that was really exciting.”

The video for “Fever in My Heart,” shot with photographer Lauryn Alvarez, features fuzzy psychedelic visuals as Kugel’s face blurs around the screen in front of glittering, spiraling backgrounds. “Do It or Don’t” features gothic imagery mapped under bright green neon lights displaying the lyrics. The vibe of the videos match the themes of the record — DIY, ethereal, and bizarre, but never detached — creating an aesthetic that cannot help but engage an audience.

“After doing the record all by myself, I really was interested in collaborating,” she says. “We exchanged visual ideas and got the footage; it was an experiment for everything.”

As she embarks on a short West Coast tour over the next two weeks, Kugel welcomes more of this sense of collaboration.

“Now I'm working with all of these new people and what they're bringing to the songs, [and] their interpretation of what I put down on the record is something really magical to me,” she says.

As Kugel shares the record with her audience, she hopes they embrace all of the feelings the record explores along with her.

“I hope that when people listen to it, they can connect the sense of loss and dealing with it and not being angry about it,” she describes. “Just sort of observing life as it happens.”

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