JJULIUS

Needle drop and a floaty, child-like piano sucks you into the post-punk papier-mâché world of JJULIUS, where everyone speaks Swedish, listens to Young Marble Giants and eats nothing but Twizzlers.

Vol. 2 is, perhaps obviously, a continuation of the world-building JJULIUS did on Vol. 1, which is a little more raw, a little wilder in spirit and sold out at both source and every record store that managed to get its hand on a copy. It will also re-arrive this summer on DFA this summer alongside its successor. (Order here.)

JJULIUS is Gotebörg’s Julius Pierstorff, who, with his partner Elin Engström aka Loopsel, also records as Monokultur and runs the tiny label Mamma’s Mysterious Jukebox.

The music they make both together and separately is entirely their own, with its own rules of what instruments come and go; when a song begins and ends or swells like a marshmallow. And yet! It’s also referencing all the records we love and know - Young Marble Giants, Postcard Records, early Cabaret Voltaire, and even contemporary local peers like Mathaverskan.

Buy the ticket, take the trip.

Written and recorded in the depths of the early pandemic, JJULIUS’ first solo album, Vol. 1, is a heavily lidded, subsuming journey into the dark heart DIY and kosmische sounds. There are traditional “songs” here, sure - catchy basslines, little dollops of guitar melody, and words, albeit sung in Swedish - but it’s really more of a complete experience than a collection of tracks, a world you don’t really want to leave even if you have no idea what’s really going on.

JJULIUS is Julius Pierstorff, a Götebörg-based musician and producer who has kicked around that city’s incredibly vibrant DIY scene in a variety of projects. He is half of Monokultur with his partner Elin, who also records on her own as Loopsel. Newly signed to DFA, the pair have new records on the way along with this repress of the long-since-sold-out Vol. 1.

Both Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 LPs, together as one (bundled package).

1. Brinna ut (feat. Loopsel)
2. Etiopisk hallucination (feat. Julia Bjernelind)
3. Letar efter nya plågor
4. Köpa saker (feat. Clara Flygare)
5. Verkligheten och jag
6. Balladen om elpriset i Augusti 2022 (feat. Loopsel)
7. Coral bass strings (feat. Loopsel, Nathan Roche)
8. Dödsdisco (feat. Clara Flygare)
9. Ringer å ringer
10. Välkommen på intervju (feat. Nathan Roche)

In the discourse around new albums from singular, world-building artists, the phrase “a big step forward” can often be a blinking red warning sign. You know you’re about to be pulled somewhere new against your will. Inertia is a hell of a thing. It’s nice here. Surely, the party’s not over yet?

JJULIUS’ Vol. 3 album is a big step forward, or a step up, out of the murky basement of the preceding two volumes. There’s no time to acclimate. A spindly violin grabs you by the hand and pulls you into the pastoral bounce of “Brinna ut,” which, in spite of its meaning (“Burn out”), creates the kind of blind positivity and warm stomach feeling less cynical people might find in self-help seminars. For us, we have records like this. And, inertia be damned, Vol. 3 has charm like a balm.

JJULIUS records have always arrived like meteors from another planet, an impression hammered home by the fact that they’re titled like compendiums of artifacts. And while Vols. 1 and 2 carried that notable tinge of darkness, Vol. 3 has (almost!) cast that shadow, adding elements of disco (“Dödsdisco”) and dream-pop (“Etopisk hallucination”) to his forever favorites Arthur Russell, African Head Charge, and The Fall.

Some of that new car smell could be attributed to a change in process. Each song was written over beats played by Tor Sjödén of the wild-eyed Stockholm group Viagra Boys, beats that were themselves inspired by tracks from the likes of Patrick Cowley, CAN, Count Ossie, Black Devil Disco Club and others that Julius would send to him as inspiration.

Unless you're Mark E. Smith, fervor fades. Eventually we all crave a lie down in some nice grass, a few minutes to gaze at the sky and wonder if everything is actually all that bad. Vol. 3 gives you 35 of those respiting minutes. “No looking back, no misery, no talking trash, no enemies.”

Produced by JJULIUS with invaluable help from Petter Granberg


Mixed by Petter Granberg


Mastered and cut by Bob Weston


Graphic design by William Jokijärvi Andersson

Pressed at Furnace Record Pressing in Alexandria, VA