Juliet Quick
New Yorker Juliet Quick’s latest EP, Circles, shows remarkable precocity and mindfulness. With lyrical depth and unwavering strength, Glass Years addresses depression, anxiety, assault, and global warming. Her voice is crystal clear, and the takeaway message is one of overcoming and liberation. Out tomorrow on Substitute Scene!
I’m invested in making things that are beautiful and feel good.
juliet quick
Can you tell me a bit about how this EP came into being?
From a writing standpoint, it is really just a series of songs from a period of about two years when I was learning to play the guitar and going through a lot of major life changes. More tangibly, they were produced and recorded by the wonderful Rick Spataro, of Onlyness and Florist, in his studio in Albany. He also played a lot of the instruments on the record—keys and electric guitar and some percussion. My two longtime bandmates, Nathan Kamal (violin and mandolin) and Phil Joy (drums and some synth) came up to play on it. Some of the arrangements had evolved from playing the songs live, but Nathan is really responsible for the string arrangements and Phil is behind most of the drum parts and a beautiful synth bit on “Circles.” I move pretty slowly when it comes to this stuff, so it ended up taking about a full year to record, mix, and master these five songs. Oops.
Your songs deal with some tough issues, from anxiety and abuse to global warming. Is writing music a healing tool for you?
Certainly. If not healing, then coping at least. Sometimes when you finish writing a song it becomes a little artifact that holds a feeling or an experience inside it, and you can look at it with a little bit of separation and say “oh that’s what you are” or “okay, you live in there now.” Then, hopefully, the part of it that lives in your brain is more manageable, and you can play the song over and over again until it loses its sharpness. Of course, sometimes things require many songs, and some refuse to be contained at all.
Releasing an album in the midst of a pandemic can’t be easy. Have you found any silver linings?
It’s almost all silver linings! I miss playing shows and seeing shows so much, but releasing music is probably the next best thing. I’ve been working on these songs for such a long time, and it’s so much fun to share them with people, and to have something to celebrate. I wish I could tour, but sharing music at a distance is a good consolation, and I keep thinking about how cozy and powerful those shows will be when they eventually happen.
What is your hope for these songs and how they may touch listeners?
My greatest hope is always that they are listened to at all, and listened to thoughtfully. I hope that they give people pleasure—I’m a Taurus and kind of a hedonist, so I’m invested in making things that are beautiful and feel good. That’s the first mark to hit. Then, at a deeper level, I hope that they understand or feel understood by the songs.
Pre-order Glass Years on Bandcamp.
Photo by Hannah Solomon
