Julia Jacklin grew up in the Blue Mountains, NSW. As a kid, she sang. First classical music, then pop-punk tunes in a high-school covers band. By the time she moved to Sydney in her early 20s, she’d cobbled together sketches of her own – observational folk songs laced with a melancholic ache, but buoyed with a wry humour and Jacklin’s rich, distinctive voice.

Fleshing them out at sporadic DIY shows and songwriter nights around Sydney, Jacklin collected a band of friends and headed to New Zealand to record with Ben Edwards (Marlon Williams, Aldous Harding, Nadia Reid). Three weeks later, she returned home with her debut album Don’t Let The Kids Win.

“I thought it was going to be a heartbreak record”, says Jacklin. “But in hindsight I see it was about hitting 24 and being like 'wait, this isn't what I imagined this part of my life to look like'. I thought I was going to be a lot more impressive. This record came from the mad rush to make something before any more time passed me by.”

Don’t Let The Kids Win was released in October, 2016. And something happened: Jacklin’s conviction was realised. This album, so concerned with the rush of passing time, slowed the clock.

“I’m finally feeling my age,” says Jacklin. “When you feel like you’ve done something worthwhile, you relax a bit. That’s a nice feeling I have now, that I definitely didn’t have when I made the record.” Another new occurrence - Jacklin’s trajectory has soared. In the wake of the album’s release she has toured the world and been invited to perform at many of the world's biggest festivals including Glastonbury, Primavera, Roskilde, FYF, Newport Folk, Splendour In The Grass, Latitude, Laneway and more.

Don’t Let The Kids Win has been a critics favourite, featuring on numerous end of year lists in 2016, and Jacklin has enjoyed milestone moments like nominations for APRA Australian Song of the Year, Album of the Year at the Triple J Awards, featuring on NPR’s Tiny Desk Series, and selling out the Metro Theatre in Sydney, performing to 1200 hometown fans singing back every word.

While the anxieties, which fueled her debut album, have settled, Jacklin is showing little sign of slowing down. A new 7” release is planned for September, written and recorded in one of her few scheduled touring breaks this year. The first single Eastwick, was inspired by a night in front of the TV watching Dancing With The Stars, and is accompanied by another superb self-directed music video, co-starring Jacklin’s bass player Harrison Fuller.

Jacklin has also relocated to Barcelona for the time being, with plans to recapture the Spanish she learned while living in Costa Rica at 19.

It’s a relentless level of ambition to live with, but after a life-changing year of touring the world, it at least comes with a level of satisfaction for what has been achieved.

“I’m quite proud of myself,” she says. “I still have a lot to prove, but I’m happy where I am right now. It’s important to recognise those moments in your life. Not let any kind of anxieties creep in. Push them out and think, ‘No, I’m going to enjoy this right now.’