If I Never Hit Land
OCTOBER 16, 2020
JULETTA
I wrote If I Never Hit Land in the two years following the summer of 2018, when I interviewed women all over New York City with the goal of turning the stories they shared with me into songs. I was undergoing a turbulent process of change and independence at the time, and found that as I internalized the stories from the women I had met, a story of my own was unveiling. What resulted was an album that documented 2 years of growing pains, familial relationships, anger and instinct, shedding skin, forgiveness and higher powers. Upon meeting New York based producer Ishan, “If I Never Hit Land” took full musical form that married my ethereal sound with his driving, house- influenced production. This album is my account and my experience of the memories, the tears shed, the echoing thoughts and the complexities from 30 interviews with women from New York City, all stored in the limbo world that is If I Never Hit Land.
ISHAN
When I first met Juletta, she told me she had just come from the park. She was interviewing women in preparation for her upcoming album. After talking with her about it, I was taken aback -- I hadn’t met anyone who had that sort of vision for their work, who had so much drive, and who was actively trying to reach out to their community to source inspiration. We soon began collaborating, and it was quickly apparent that we were bringing out the best in each other.
Working with Juletta was like letting me loose on a playground. The beauty of her voice and her openness to my experimentation allowed me to grapple with ideas that had possessed my mind as a producer, but that I’d never had the chance to fully explore: blending folk and house music, bringing something new to what the great musicians of the past have achieved, and manipulating voice to create a hybrid between human and machine.
To me the album is this sort of balancing act, not only sonically, but in spirit.