An Anglo-French musical adventurer, Julia-Sophie’s musical journey has been every bit as widespread as her physical one. As the founder of Little Fish, she was signed to Universal Motown/Island and toured the USA with the likes of Blondie, Courtney Love and Juliette Lewis. Since then she has found further acclaim both for her solo work, as a member of Candy Says and as the founder of the excellent Beanie Tapes label. With a new album, Forgive Too Slow, set for release next month via the always excellent Ba Da Bing Records, today Julia-Sophie is premiering the video for her latest single, Telephone.

Julia-Sophie’s attempt to, “communicate that feeling of true wistful love“, Telephone is an exploration of new love and old demons that often come back to haunt it, “It feels magical. But then, as always for me, real life comes in and fucks it all up. Once again, I find myself trapped by the stories of my past“.

Not a track that comes screaming out the blocks, Telephone instead seems to gently drift into your ears, a burbling synth and a steady drum-pad tick entering, before Julia-Sophie enters with her icy cool vocal, a picture-perfect rendition of melancholy as she sings, “I always had a feeling I was wasting time, I always had a feeling that I couldn’t get you out my mind”. Through it has a sense of calmly falling apart, recalling the likes of Patience or Robyn in her less poppy moments. It’s instantly clear this isn’t a theatrical tantrum of a heartache, this is much more real, as Julia-Sophie remembers, “a thumb through the hole in your jumper”, or, “the way that you listen to your walkman”, the tiny little details that add up to someone you could really love, if only you’d both let it happen. Ultimately, while this isn’t grief in the strictest sense of the word, it has many of the same qualities, that sense of what was, what could have been, and what is all failing to align, failing to make sense inside your head, wishing away reality for the warm comfort of fantasy. It’s bruising and it’s bleak, and it’s really rather beautiful, in the way songs written from a place of the purest most honest part of ourselves so often are.

Forgive Too Slow is out July 26th via Ba Da Bing Records. For more information on Julia-Sophie visit https://linktr.ee/juliasophiex0x.