Julia, Julia
The solo project of Julia Kugel from punk band The Coathangers
Shares a new single and video for “A Love That Hurts,” which are stripped down, reflections of love, heartbreak and ultimately healing
Watch “A Love That Hurts” video
New album Sugaring a Strawberry is out September 9 on
Suicide Squeeze / Happy Sundays Records
Julia’s album is emotionally retrospective, creatively unvarnished, and deeply human. You can hear it in the hiss, the warmth, in the vocals so raw they’re like an open window. These songs weren’t engineered for perfection. They were built to breathe.
Photo by Robert Downs
Today, Julia, Julia shares second album single “A Love That Hurts” and a video by Scott Montoya. “A Love That Hurts,” drifts in on soft, fingerpicked guitar and a dry, close-mic vocal that feels both haunted and immediate. The mix is stripped down and analog-warm, letting tape hum and silence frame the emotion. Julia sings like she’s remembering something she doesn’t want to, each line a slight unraveling. Like the rest of the album, “A Love That Hurts” doesn’t push toward resolution. It sits in the ache, sifts through it, makes it beautiful.
Watch “A Love That Hurts” video
Album pre-order page
Sugaring a Strawberry, the sophomore record from Julia, Julia, is a study in coming undone on purpose. Recorded at COMA, Julia Kugel’s home studio, and mixed through a custom Flickenger clone, the album drifts in and out of clarity like memory itself. Her long-time collaborator and husband, Scott Montoya, mixes it all so loosely that you can hear the air between tracks—a space that makes the music feel inhabited rather than recorded.
Julia explains, “I made Sugaring A Strawberry in an effort to reconnect to something human. AI, streaming, and the digital experience of music have left me feeling a bit empty. I wanted to re-evaluate and reset. I would love for people to experience the record on vinyl – with all the cracks and imperfections. Along with the legendary Suicide Squeeze Records, Sugaring A Strawberry is proudly co-released on Happy Sundays Records—an extension of the festival we put on every year. This will be the first record released on Happy Sundays Records.”
Julia, Julia will be performing at Happy Sundays Festival in August
“Bound” opens the album like a secret passed between sisters, solemn and unspeakably close. It begins with the softest of touches: hushed guitar, a near-whispered delivery that carries the intimacy of someone singing only for one other person. It’s a love song, but not romantic, more ancestral in the way long bonds can be. The lyric “I will be your home” is like a vow that has already been kept again and again. Hovering between devotion and entrapment, it unfolds slowly and sacredly.
Julia released the video for “Bound” earlier this month, which was directed by Your Intimate Noise and edited by Scott Montoya. The video is a dreamy representation of the song – a retro style technicolor dream.
All glow and undercurrent, “I Know,” is like hearing someone hum through a wound. The track arrives as if it had been waiting, coiled and complete, to be sung. Its pulse is slow but insistent, anchored on a hypnotic loop and a vocal that’s half-incantation, half-confession. “But I’m a fighter now” rises like a mantra, fragile but certain, the kind of line that doesn’t demand belief so much as carry it.
One of the most outward-facing songs on the record, “Feeling Lucky,” opens like a cigarette flicked in the dark– smoky and a little bit slick. Built on a skeletal beat and a nearly detached vocal, it leans into a sarcastic swagger that barely masks the ache beneath. The delivery is droll and glazed, the instrumentation is sparse and a little woozy, leaving space for her voice to sway—a shrug of a song, stylish in its sadness.
Sugaring a Strawberry doesn’t seek catharsis so much as stumbles into it. There’s a quiet volatility to these songs like they might fall apart if you press too hard. It moves in shadow and softness, asking questions it doesn’t answer. It doesn’t end with closure. It ends with truth.
Praise for Sugaring a Strawberry new singles:
“Minimal psych-folk single…“A Love That Hurts,” which continues Derealization’s tradition of stripping things down to soft vocals, gentle guitar, and plenty of atmosphere. ”
– FLOOD
“…A raw acoustic number…pairing ethereal and hypnotic vocals with swaying acoustic guitars, “Bound” serves as a powerful delivery of devotion, admiration, and affection.”
– New Noise Magazine
“Bound” feels as though it’s been pulled from the Twin Peaks roadhouse, a melody built on half remembered dream scapes and intrigue. It’s a recording that picks up on natural surroundings, echoing into the distance with a calming immediacy.“
– Post-Trash
“…a stunning, intense ballad.”
– Spinning Platters
Album Tracklist
1. Bound
2. A Love That Hurts
3. Breathe
4. Feeling Lucky
5. Flickering Light
6. I Know
7. Blackout
8. Stalemate
9. Hang On
10. One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong
