Based in Brooklyn, Julia Rapp is a poet and songwriter who released debut single ‘Vapor‘ earlier this year. The song set out the balance between vulnerability and strength intrinsic to Rapp’s work, stepping through a difficult and often lonely world, posing questions in search of sure footing. “How do I find sincerity to give?” she asks. “At least I have the will to live.” Such things are not taken lightly, and the track slowly builds in its rhythm and richness. A growing sense which might not be conviction, but at least the determination to keep going when the world is sick and the sky is weeping.
With a similar interplay between doubt and assurance, latest single ‘Fear (If I’m Still Lucid)’ builds upon this style. A song which began life as a “dark poem” centred on fears of intimacy which eventually evolved into a something more nuanced, with themes of healing emerging with palpable force. The result falls somewhere between Lucy Dacus and Cat Power. A slice of catharsis too world-weary to believe in easy epiphanies, yet resolute in its faith in the possibility of healing. “[I] played it for the first time it at an open mic in San Francisco after coming out of a depressive episode,” as Rapp explains. “The end was a victory yell—something between a weep and a scream.”
‘Fear (If I’m Still Lucid)’ is out now and available from all the usual places.