Julia Julia Cumming

• 1 My Life 03:45
• 2 Revel in the Knowledge 03:08
• 3 Hollywood Communication 02:55
• 4 Please Let Me Remember This 03:38
• 5 Emotional Labor 03:23
• 6 Ruled By Fear 02:42
• 7 Fucking Closure 02:51
• 8 I Dream of a Fire That Stays Burning When Nobody Tends It 03:07
• 9 Do It All Again 03:40
• 10 Sounds of a Secret 03:09
• 11 Forget The Rest 03:08
• Total Runtime 35:26

Info for Julia

Julia Cumming’s solo debut Julia opens with an unadorned declaration of independence: her voice and a piano uniting for a liberating proclamation of self that rejects doubt, misogyny, and the notion of being “too much. Julia unlocks a creative door years in the making for the New York–born multi-instrumentalist and Sunflower Bean bassist, culminating after nearly two decades of bands, releases, labels, and relentless touring. As Sunflower Bean’s Headful of Sugar era ended in 2023, Cumming decamped to Los Angeles, where a two-year, deeply healing collaboration with producer Brian Robert Jones — her “second artistic puberty” — took shape. Drawing freely from formative influences: Burt Bacharach, Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon, and Brian Wilson. Julia emerges as a joyful, anti-cool coming-out: a celebration of the dorks, the misfits, and the enduring truth of being enough.

"Sunflower Bean singer and bassist Julia Cumming blooms into her pop self with 2026's gorgeously realized Julia. Her solo debut, the album captures both a personal and creative transition for Cumming who wrote many of the songs over a two-year period, traveling between her childhood home in N.Y.C. and living rooms in Los Angeles where she worked closely with bassist, guitarist, and producer Brian Robert Jones and producer/engineer Chris Coady. During the same time, she was busy with Sunflower Bean, releasing both 2023's Headful of Sugar and 2025's Mortal Primetime; albums that found the indie trio expanding their sound, balancing edgier alt-rock leanings with Cumming's love for the lyrical, '60s and '70s AM pop she grew up listening to, including artists like Burt Bacharach, Carole King, and Brian Wilson. It's that latter, more introspective sound she embraces here, framing her naturally resonant voice in warm analog arrangements, with contributions from pianist Roger Manning, drummer Garrett Ray, and percussionist Andrew Lappin, as well as Yeah Yeah Yeahs guitarist Nick Zinner who jumps on board for two tracks. There's a feeling of deep, feminist self-reflection, as Cumming, who was still in her teens when she joined Sunflower Bean, works through complex emotions about growing up in the judgmental glare of the music industry, getting her heart broken, and struggling to believe in herself. It's a feeling she underscores on "I Dream of a Fire That Stays Burning When Nobody Tends to It," singing "Me and my worthlessness, we’re best friends/She holds me with her skinny arms and hunchback, saying I told you so." Yet, rather than wallowing in self-doubt, she brings a breezy optimism to her songs as in the opening "My Life," where she admits "I’m too lonesome or too horny or too feisty or proud/I’m too wanting or too lazy or I’m trying too hard/I’m confessional/Made it weird with something I said/I fall in love and then find out it’s all in my head." That the song itself brings to mind the cinematically sun-dappled quality of artists like Paul Williams and Carpenters speaks to the way Cumming makes her influences her own throughout the album. Similarly, she conjures a sparkling disco afterglow atmosphere on "Please Let Me Remember This," sinks into the sweeping Baroque pop balladry on "Emotional Labor," and wraps herself in an unapologetic glitter rock-tango catharsis on "Do It All Again." With Julia, Cumming doesn't so much disentangle herself from her indie rock roots as bring her roots into full pop flower." (Matt Collar, AMG)

Julia Cumming

Julia Cumming
Julia Cumming is a Brooklyn-based musician, model, and activist whose punk edge and magnetic cool fuse fashion runways with raw rock energy, championed by Dazed as "the bass-playing Brooklyn teen... breaking down the walls between punk and fashion."​

Fronting Sunflower Bean since age 13, she electrified early H&M campaigns alongside Gigi Hadid and Hailey Bieber, walked four Saint Laurent shows (including menswear), and fronted their SS15/AW15 ads as Hedi Slimane's muse. Shot by Steven Meisel for i-D, Interview, Dazed, Document Journal, French Vogue, Australian Vogue, and Vogue Italia, Julia's kohl-rimmed gaze and tousled white hair defined a generation's rebel aesthetic, with Sunflower Bean earning raves from NME, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times for their punk-pop-psychedelia blend - touring with The Vaccines, DIIV, Pixies, and their debut Human Ceremony.​

Her activism shines through Model Alliance work and directing videos urging youth political action, plus a 2021 feature on Manic Street Preachers. Fresh off Sunflower Bean's Mortal Primetime (2025) release and tour and recent Wolf Alice UK arena tour support - on stages at O2 Arena and AO Arena - Julia remains a versatile force in music, style, and culture.

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