With Julia Stone’s new record comes the grit and glitter of the city, and
all its attendant joys and dangers, romances and risks. No longer content to
merely explore the wildernesses of folk and indie-rock, Sixty Summers,
Stone’s third solo outing, finds the celebrated songwriter diving head first
into the cosmopolitan, hedonistic world of late-night, moonlit pop. Dirt under
foot is replaced with wet pavement and sticky dancefloors; blue skies are traded
for red lights and red lips. A dazzling reintroduction to the beloved Stone,
Sixty Summers presents that rarest of transformations: not a metamorphosis or
cheap makeover, but a shedding of skin, a revealing. Itis Stone at her truest,
brightest self, a powerful and revered icon finally painting herself with her
own brush and her own palette.
Recorded sporadically over five years from 2015 to 2019, Sixty Summers was
shaped profoundly by Stone’s key collaborators on the album: Thomas Bartlett,
aka Doveman, and Annie Clark, the Grammy-winning singer, songwriter and producer
known as St. Vincent. Bartlett and Clark were the symbiotic pair Stone needed to
realise her first pop vision. A wizard of production and songwriting, Bartlett
helped coax Sixty Summers’ independent, elemental spirit from Stone, writing
and recording over 50 demos with her at his studio in New York. Itself a
thoroughfare for indie rock luminaries, some of whom, such as The
National’s Matt Berninger and Bryce Dessner, ended up on the album,
Bartlett’s studio was perfect fertile ground for Stone’s growth. “Making
this record with Thomas, I felt so free. I can hear it in the music,” says
Stone. “He brings a sense of confidence to recording sessions.”
The scope of Sixty Summers is dizzyingly vast; miles away from Stone’s past
work, it is a world unto itself, a surreal and breath-taking new landscape.
Where Stone’s previous solo records, 2010’s ‘The Memory Machine’ and
2014’s ‘By The Horns,’ found her grappling with the natural darkness that
comes with loving too much, Sixty Summers finds Stone claiming every part of
herself: fire, fury, love, lust, longing.