JULIA STONE REVEALS NEW SINGLE ‘FIRE IN ME’ + ALBUM SIXTY SUMMERS TO BE RELEASED 30 APRIL
Image Credit: Brooke Ashley Barone
“When you think about the last couple of decades in Australian music, there aren't many voices, if any, that have been as ubiquitous and game changing as that of Julia Stone's.”
- ABC ONLINE
“Euphoric”
- ROLLING STONE
“Julia Stone: folk pop princess no more.”
- SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
"Aussie queen”
- INDIE SHUFFLE
Julia Stone has today revealed the newest single from her forthcoming album Sixty Summers - ‘Fire In Me’. With its glam rock stomp and Stone’s haunting vocals, ‘Fire In Me’ is one of Sixty Summers’ most instantly striking tracks. Co-written with Dann Hume, the glamorous pound of ‘Fire In Me’ mirrors the song’s lyrical content, which describes the feeling of “fire in your belly” — the ability to be, or do, anything one wants. Brightened by a “Bond-like” string section from album co-producer Thomas Bartlett, ‘Fire In Me’ easily evokes the heat and strength of Stone’s lyrics.
A compelling and formidable song about the internal strength within everyone, ‘Fire In Me’ highlights Stone’s gift to take us to all the corners of the emotional arena. “For me, ‘Fire In Me’ was about creating a feeling of pure energy,” Stone says of the song. “I love the feeling when the music sounds like what the lyrics mean,” she describes. A true international effort, ‘Fire In Me’ came together between Sydney with Dann Hume, New York with Thomas Bartlett and in Annie Clark’s (aka St Vincent's) studio in L.A with the horn lines recorded in infamous Sing Sing studios on Chapel St, Melbourne.
‘Fire In Me’ stands as the fifth taste of Julia Stone’s third solo album Sixty Summers (now due for release on 30 April due to a delay in vinyl production). It follows ‘We All Have (feat. Matt Berninger)’ - a tender ballad featuring unmistakable vocal of The National’s frontman, the dreamy, rose-coloured ‘Dance’, the ethereal and otherworldly 'Unreal' and ‘Break’ - an exciting and dizzying song drenched in dazzling moonlit pop. The aforementioned tracks join nine others on Sixty Summers, the scope of which is dizzyingly vast.
Her first solo album in eight years, Sixty Summers arrives as a powerful rebirth for one of Australia’s most prolific artists. Emerging from the wildernesses of folk and indie-rock, on Sixty Summers Stone dives headfirst into the cosmopolitan, hedonistic world of late-night, moonlit pop. The stunning album brings us the grit and glitter of the city, with all its attendant joys, dangers, romances and risks. It is Stone at her truest, brightest self, a revered icon finally sharing her long, secret love affair with this vibrant and complex genre.
Recorded sporadically over five years from 2015 to 2019, Sixty Summers was shaped profoundly by Stone’s key collaborators on the album: Thomas Bartlett, aka Doveman, and Annie Clark, the Grammy-winning singer, songwriter and producer known as St. Vincent. Bartlett and Clark were the symbiotic pair Stone needed to realise her first pop vision. A wizard of production and songwriting, Bartlett helped coax Sixty Summers’ independent, elemental spirit from Stone, writing and recording over 30 demos with her at his studio in New York. Itself a thoroughfare for indie rock luminaries, some of whom, such as the aforementioned Matt Berninger from The National and Bryce Dessner, ended up on the album, Bartlett’s studio was perfect fertile ground for Stone’s growth. “Making this record with Thomas, I felt so free. I can hear it in the music,” says Stone.
Miles away from Stone’s past work, Sixty Summers is a world unto itself, a surreal and breathtaking new landscape. Where Stone’s previous solo records, 2010’s The Memory Machine and 2014’s By The Horns, found her grappling with the natural darkness that comes with loving too much, Sixty Summers finds Stone claiming every part of herself: fire, fury, love, lust, longing. Touching on reference points as disparate as the avant-funk of Talking Heads (on ‘Break’) the romantic 2am musings of Serge Gainsbourg (‘Free’, ‘Dance’) and the sleek, ecstatic synth work of Lorde’s Melodrama (‘Substance’), Sixty Summers is an album you can dance to and one you can lose yourself in completely.