Julia Jacklin was hard at work on a new album when she realized something.
"And I would listen to it, and I would be, like, 'Technically, this is good, but I don't like it,'" Jacklin says.
She could hear herself holding back. She found herself making choices based on what listeners might expect rather than what she actually wanted to make. So, she started over, became a boss in the recording studio, and she found the record she actually wanted to make. It's called The Gem.
Her new record is named after the neighborhood bar in Melbourne that just so happens to have a recording studio upstairs.
"It's just nice to be around people who are doing other things. It just kind of took the pressure off what I was doing, made it feel less important, which is good," she says.
Today, she joins World Cafe to talk about the tension between wanting intimacy and wanting independence, recording near a busy bar, plus Jacklin performs live.
This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Miguel Perez. Our senior producer is Kimberly Junod and our engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.
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