Name: Perfect Version
Brand: Julia Shapiro

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

HAR114-1

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Colour

Black

Colour details

Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: Yes

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: Yes

Format detail

First Pressing On Blue Vinyl. 

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Format Music US

Limited edition

Release date

2019-06-14

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier US

Sub P­op

Tax rate US

Sales:8.875

UPC / Barcode

098787311419

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Total Cap

1 / Extended format: Yes / LP / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No / black

CD 11426 H

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Download code: No

Extended format: No

2019-07-19

098787311426

{"blocks": [{"data": {"text": "098787311426"}, "type": "paragraph"}]}

1 / CD / Extended format: No / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No

HAR114-1b

{"blocks": [{"data": {"text": "HAR114-1b"}, "type": "paragraph"}]}

2019-06-28

1 / Extended format: No / LP / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No / black

Artist

Julia Shapiro

Genre US

Rock-Pop

Label US

Hardly Art

Chastity Belt's Julia Shapiro releases solo album <i>Perfect Vision</i> available here on Blue Vinyl, Black Vinyl, CD and Tape. 

When Julia Shapiro flew home from a cancelled Chastity Belt tour in April 2018, everything in her life felt out of control. Dealing with health issues, freshly out of a relationship, and in the middle of an existential crisis, she realized halfway through a tour supporting her band’s third album I Used to Spend So Much Time Alone that she was going through too much to continue. “I was really struggling; I was really depressed. I felt like I couldn’t sing or be a person,” Shapiro recalls. “At that point I couldn’t evenimagine playing a show again, I was so over it.”

Returning home to a newly empty Seattle one-bedroom apartment, Shapiro had wanted for a long time to learn how to record and mix her own music, and out of the uncertainty of the future of her music career and her health, she began to record the songs that would become Perfect Version, her solo debut for Hardly Art. What she created in the space of ten songs is an intimate and beautifully self-aware examination of feeling lost in the life you’ve created for yourself. It’s an album of shimmering guitars and layered vocals that feels vast in the emotional depth it conveys and masterful in the wayeach song is intentionally crafted and recorded.

Over the course of a tumultuous year of trying to find stability amidst depression and surgery, Shapiro ultimately rediscovered the parts of music that she loved through the process. Her perfectionist qualities create an album that shines in tiny lyrical moments and meticulous guitar parts. “When the rest of my life felt out of control, I felt like this was my chance to be in control of everything,” says Shapiro. She plays all the instruments (save for a mouth trumpet solo by Darren Hanlon and guest violin by Annie Truscott) and after recording and mixing the first batch of four songs at the Vault studio with Ian LeSage decided to record the final six tracks alone in her apartment, adding drums in the studio later and learning to mix them with the help of her friend David Hrivnak. Perfect Version is a fully realized vision from a gifted songwriter finding a more intimate voice. “So what comes next?” she questions on the album closer “Empty Cup” which explores the quiet satisfaction of being alone with yourself and creating a blankslate. “A lasting sense of self,” she concludes.

Perfect Version

Music US