Julia Bardo - Phase (2020)

Debut EP from the Italian-born Manchester based Julia Bardo. ‘Phase’ represents the artist’s quest to make music that is entirely her own. While studying in Manchester, Bardo met members of Working Men’s Club, the chugging post-punk English band she would join. Yet she still itched to have full creative control over her music, which she uses as a means to understand herself better. “For me, music is about healing what is hurt inside of me. I heal by writing and talking about what troubles me. I’ve always been very lonely, and I’ve always been very emotional - these things inform my music quite a bit.”

Bardo’s first-written, debut solo single ‘Desire’ earned attention from The Line of Best Fit and BBC Radio and saw her enchant audiences at UK festivals like Neighbourhood, Liverpool Sound City and The Great Escape. Yet ‘Phase’ marks a defining moment for a forward-facing young artist and comes with a stark warning: don’t get too comfortable. “‘Phase’ is a wave, you know; I get inspired and each time I write, it’s an evolution of what I wrote before.”

Bardo’s music illustrates her constantly changing world through journal-like observations that log each trauma and triumph, influenced by the music she grew up with (Italian musicians from the 60s such as Mina, Lucio Battisti, Patty Pravo and other icons of that era like Nancy Sinatra) as well as her modern day heroines (Cate Le Bon, Angel Olsen, Aldous Harding, Lucy Dacus, Sharon Van Etten, Jessica Pratt and Weyes Blood, to name a few). She co-produced ‘Phase’ alongside The Orielles’ Henry Carlyle Wade at Stockport’s Eve Studios. “It was exciting,” Bardo recalls. “For the first time these songs feel like me.”