JULIA KENT
Booking: elisa(@)folkwisdom.net
“Epic”- THE GUARDIAN 4/5, Contemporary Album of the Month
“This is music on a truly human scale, in terms of its inspiration, delivery and undeniable emotional punch” – MOJO 4/5
“Her playing is as graceful as any ballerina, but this is a not-so-merry dance through sombre post-classical soundscapes at once both intimate and imposing” – DJ 8/10
“Her tracks all contain a depth and soul miles beyond most of the electronic/classical fusions available today”- POPMATTERS
Canadian-born, New York City–based cellist and composer Julia Kent makes music using layered and processed cello, electronics, and found sounds, creating haunting and evocative soundscapes that range from hushed intimacy to cinematic expansiveness. She has released five solo records, the most recent being Temporal on UK label Leaf, and has toured throughout North America and Europe, including appearances at Primavera Sound, Mutek, Meltdown, and Unsound.
She also composes for film, television, theatre, and dance, including award-winning film scores and music for productions at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, BAM Fishman Space in New York City, Ballett Nationaltheater Mannheim, and Balletto Teatro di Torino.
Temporal, released on Leaf Records in 2019, is a meditation on the transitory and fragile nature of existence. Much of the music that comprises the album was originally written to accompany theatre and dance productions. “The initial inspiration was more external than internal, in that many of these pieces began as a response to a text or a choreographic concept,” Julia explains, “but they all seemed to be coming from the same emotional world and it made sense to weave them together into a record.”
After the threat of violent release on previous album Asperities, Temporal’s relationship to the physical world manifests itself in a more organic, human sound. The electronic manipulations are subtler, with Julia sampling voices from a theatre production and processing them into unrecognisable textures: ghosts of the source material. “I included the processed voices to acknowledge the genesis of the music and also because I wanted to incorporate vocals in a way that turned voice into texture, and blurred the lines between sonic elements.”