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JULIA DARLING Figure 8 (Wind-Up) Figure 8 is Julia Darling's debut release, and in a case of art imitating life, this former street busker from New Zealand transplanted in New York, is all over the map. This diversity is not a complaint mind you, as there's not an unpleasant example of Julia's music in evidence. Quite frankly, there's a spectacular beauty in the ambitious expansiveness of this offering. Too often, we try to define an artist by a particular style. You are just as likely to find organs, cellos, bagpipes and harps adorning these tracks as electric guitar and drums. On "Bulletproof Belief," Julia soars with vocal confidence kept aloft in part by the masterful Jon Brion on electric guitar. Indeed, her indominatable will seems almost palpable. The stacatto "Soak Me" is an infectious and lively request for nurturing and rejuvenation. The smolderingly caustic "I Will Bury You" provides a glimpse of pain that you might not expect to find in so young a woman. Despite all her bravura in those tunes, Darling belies her vulnerability and trepidation in ethereal ballads like "Grace" when she ponders, "I fear the day they use my heart/I swear the day they use my heart/We lose the way, we fall apart." No one could ever accuse this eclectic artist of being derivative or borrowing too much from one any source, though she admits her Kate Bush influences -- apparent on the brooding "Crinolines and Waltzing." In the end, Figure 8, poses some pretty heavy questions coming from the 22 year-old singer. While Darling doesn't profess to have the answers, by the end of this lyrical journey, she establishes that maybe the answers just are not all that important. When Darling delivers the line "looking skywards when all I need is here," you get the impression that this artist just might be onto something: Whatever philosophy you espouse, you've been given all the resources to succeed within yourself. If she reaches any conclusions, it is that self-reliance provides the truest path. And how sweet it is.Review courtesy of Ink Blot Click on album image to see larger album cover
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