Julie Christmas
Julie Christmas is a rock and metal singer from Brooklyn, born on December 25, 1975 . She became known with the noise rock band Made Out of Babies . Through collaborations and band participation in Mouth of the Architect , Battle of Mice and Cult of Luna , she established herself as one of the most popular singers in post-metal .
Live and act
Christmas was born on Christmas Day 1975, after which her parents gave her the middle name Christmas. Christmas did not reveal her actual last name publicly. In 2005, Christmas founded the noise rock group Made Out of Babies with some friends to perform on her sister's birthday. After a few rehearsals and the performance, the group decided to continue making music together. In the same year, the group signed a contract with Neurot Recordings and released their debut Trophy , which was received many times over . The vocal performance of Christmas was often highlighted as outstanding in the Trophy reviews .
At joint concerts with the label colleagues from Red Sparowes in September 2005, Christmas met Josh Graham. Both were united by an intense mutual antipathy from which a love relationship developed. The relationship was continuously strained and fraught with public conflicts. Despite the complicated relationship, Christmas and Graham formed Battle of Mice with Tony Maimone ( The Book of Knots ) and Joel Hamilton ( A Storm of Light ). The conflicts between Christmas and Graham shaped the recordings of the group, which brought Christmas reputation as an expressive emotional singer. A Day of Nights , the group's only album, was named Album of the Year by Decibel . Battle of Mice were officially disbanded in 2009, Made Out of Babies officially in 2012, after the group had not been active since 2008.
In the meantime, Christmas joined Mouth of the Architect in 2008 as a guest singer on the album Quietly and from 2008 as a singer in the group Spylacopa , with Greg Puciato from The Dillinger Escape Plan and Jeff Caxide from Isis . Her first solo album The Bad Wife was released in 2010. Further publications with different projects followed. The cooperation with the Swedish post-metal band Cult of Luna, which came out in 2016 and invited Christmas to sing the full album Mariner, received particular attention . The album received numerous praise and was named one of the 20 best metal albums of 2016 by Rolling Stone . Christmas singing was again emphasized as a distinctive feature.
Role and self-image
Christmas is often confronted with the question of her role and her self-image as a woman in the metal scene . She herself sees a difference in her musical commitment to other singers who have not been named by her, whose role in their respective groups is associated with a sexually connoted appearance.
“It makes a difference when a woman in a band makes absolutely no effort to sell her tits. It's just not a sexual thing. Then it's just someone who appears and happens to be female. The best possible answer to the question, 'What is it like to be female in the metal world?' Is to just be it. "
Christmas admits that women in metal, including themselves, are often perceived as sexualized. Accordingly, she questions who in metal is selling which product and refuses to be marketed as a sexualized or romanticized projection surface. However, she also does not see a contrary claim on her to be particularly tough or strong in the supposedly male-dominated scene. She points out that it should be less about gender and instead focus on the person and their work.
Style and reception
The music of the groups and projects in which Christmas takes part lies mainly between noise rock, post metal and other rock and metal styles of the alternative . Her singing is compared to Björk , Karen O and Kim Gordon in the music magazine Visions . On Vampster, however, Christmas' vocal performance is compared with that of Jarboe and described as " PJ HARVEY on heroin withdrawal". She describes the Internet presence of the TV station Arte as the "screaming [...] Janis Joplin of Metal". Christmas singing is multi-layered, emotional and polarizing. In some of their participations, the music is seen as the "basic framework for the performance of women".
" It usually only takes a few seconds from the teasing, sugar-sweet pop voice to the irrational screamo outburst."
Johannes Persons from Cult of Luna, in an interview with Rolling Stone, emphasized the fascination for the singing quality of Christmas. “It goes from the softest melodies to the wildest screaming, and it reaches everything in between. The range of her voice is unbelievable. ”(Johannes Persons) Critics also point to the expressive volume of her voice, which would offer regular singing, but according to Spin Magazin , her special character lies in her ability to squeak, gasp for air and to let her voice break purposefully. Vampsters are referred to as being highly authentic and their singing is described as "singing, whispering, hating, loving [and] whining". Her singing represents "one hundred percent life, with all the sunny and dark sides, whereby one could mean that the dark sides clearly predominate." polarizing warnings.
Discography (selection)
- Julie Christmas
- 2010: The Bad Wife (Album, Rising Pulse )
- 2011: Coextinction Records 5 (Album, Coextinction )
- Made out of babies
- Battle of Mice
- Spylacopa
- 2008: Spylacopa (EP, Rising Pulse)
- 2015: Parallels (album, Rising Pulse)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Made out of Babies Interview Oct 1st 2008. Absolut Zero Media, archived from the original on May 14, 2014 ; Retrieved July 6, 2017 .
- ↑ Ross Feratu: Made Out of Babies: Trophy. Ox fanzine , accessed July 7, 2017 .
- ↑ Chris True: Made Out of Babies: Trophy. Allmusic , accessed July 7, 2017 .
- ↑ Cam Lindsay: Made Out of Babies: Trophy. Exclaim, accessed July 7, 2017 .
- ↑ Chris True: Battle Of Mice. AllMusic, accessed July 7, 2017 .
- Jump up ↑ Captain Chaos: Battle of Mice: A Day of Night. Vampster , accessed July 7, 2017 .
- ↑ 20 Best Metal Albums of 2016. Rolling Stone, accessed July 7, 2017 .
- ↑ a b c d e Jonathan Dick: Gender, Big Sticks, and Working With Cult of Luna. Noisey Vice, accessed July 7, 2017 .
- ^ Richard Bienstock: How a Swedish Metal Band and Brooklyn Singer Made a Heady Masterpiece. Rolling Stone , accessed July 7, 2017 .
- ↑ Marcel Rudoletzky: Cult of Luna / Julie Christmas: Mariner. Metal Hammer . Retrieved July 7, 2017 .
- ↑ a b c Alex Klug: Cult of Luna / Julie Christmas: Mariner. Metal.de , accessed on July 7, 2017 .
- ↑ Captain Chaos: MADE OUT OF BABIES: Unicorn Dreamcore. Vampster, accessed July 7, 2017 .
- ^ A b Nils Klein: Battle of Mice: A Day of Night. Visions, accessed July 17, 2017 .
- ↑ a b c d Coward CD Review. Vampster, accessed July 7, 2017 .
- ↑ Live Made out of Babies. arte, archived from the original on May 13, 2014 ; accessed on May 12, 2014 .
- ^ Richard Bienstock: How a Swedish Metal Band and Brooklyn Singer Made a Heady Masterpiece. Rolling Stone , accessed July 7, 2017 : “She can go from the softest melodies to the wildest screams, and everything in between. The range of her voice is incredible. "
- ↑ Christopher R. Weingarten: Julie Christmas, 'The Bad Wife' (Rising Pulse). Spin, accessed May 12, 2014 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Christmas, Julie |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | american singer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 25, 1975 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Brooklyn , New York City , United States |