Julia, Julia
Sugaring a Strawberry **PRE-ORDER**
$ 24.98
**PRE-ORDER WILL SHIP ON OR AROUND SEPTEMBER 2, 2025**
+ SOPHOMORE SOLO ALBUM FROM JULIA KUGEL OF THE COATHANGERS
+ CO-RELEASE WITH HAPPY SUNDAYS RECORDS
+ FIRST PRESSING LIMITED TO 500 COPIES ON STRAWBERRY RED VINYL
+ ALL PRE-ORDER CUSTOMERS WILL RECEIVE A DOWNLOAD ON RELEASE DAY
+ LP, Zine, and Tote Bundle includes: LP on Strawberry Red vinyl, 16-page full color lyric and photo zine, 100% Cotton Sugaring a Strawberry tote bag 15" W x 16" H x 3" D
+ LP, Zine and Button Bundle includes: LP on Strawberry Red vinyl, 16-page full color lyric and photo zine, 2.25" in metallic gold Sugaring a Strawberry button
+ LP Bundle includes: Sugaring a Strawberry LP on Strawberry Red vinyl, Derealization on Heartbeat Pink vinyl
Sugaring a Strawberry, the sophomore record from Julia, Julia, is a study in coming undone—on purpose. Recorded at COMA, Julia Kugel's home studio, and mixed through a custom Flickenger clone, the album drifts in and out of clarity like memory itself. It's emotionally retrospective, creatively unvarnished, and deeply human. You can hear it in the hiss, the warmth, in the vocals so raw they're like an open window. These songs weren't engineered for perfection. They were built to breathe. Her long-time collaborator and husband, Scott Montoya, mixes it all so loosely that you can hear the air between tracks— a space that makes the music feel inhabited rather than recorded.
"Bound" opens the album like a secret passed between sisters, solemn and unspeakably close. It begins with the softest of touches: hushed guitar, a near-whispered delivery that carries the intimacy of someone singing only for one other person. It's a love song, but not romantic, more ancestral in the way long bonds can be. The lyric "I will be your home" is like a vow that has already been kept again and again. Hovering between devotion and entrapment, it unfolds slowly and sacredly.
All glow and undercurrent, "I Know," is like hearing someone hum through a wound. The track arrives as if it had been waiting, coiled and complete, to be sung. Its pulse is slow but insistent, anchored on a hypnotic loop and a vocal that's half-incantation, half-confession. "But I'm a fighter now" rises like a mantra, fragile but certain, the kind of line that doesn't demand belief so much as carry it.
One of the most outward-facing songs on the record, "Feeling Lucky," opens like a cigarette flicked in the dark– smoky and a little bit slick. Built on a skeletal beat and a nearly detached vocal, it leans into a sarcastic swagger that barely masks the ache beneath. The delivery is droll and glazed, the instrumentation is sparse and a little woozy, leaving space for her voice to sway—a shrug of a song, stylish in its sadness.
"A Love That Hurts" drifts in on soft, fingerpicked guitar and a dry, close-mic vocal that feels both haunted and immediate. The mix is stripped down and analog-warm, letting tape hum and silence frame the emotion. Julia sings like she's remembering something she doesn't want to, each line a slight unraveling. Like the rest of the album, "A Love That Hurts" doesn't push toward resolution. It sits in the ache, sifts through it, makes it beautiful.
Sugaring a Strawberry doesn't seek catharsis so much as stumbles into it. There's a quiet volatility to these songs like they might fall apart if you press too hard. It moves in shadow and softness, asking questions it doesn't answer. It doesn’t end with closure. It ends with truth.
Track-listing:
- Bound
- A Love That Hurts
- Breathe
- Feeling Lucky
- Flickering Light
- I Know
- Blackout
- Stalemate
- Hang On
- One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong
ALL SONGS WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY JULIA KUGEL
ADDITIONAL INSTRUMENTATION BY SCOTT MONTOYA
RECORDED & MIXED BY SCOTT MONTOYA AT CENTRE OF MENTAL ARTS (COMA) IN LONG BEACH, CA.
MASTERED BY MICK BOGGIS
**ALL PRE-ORDER SALES ARE FINAL**
**VINYL PICS ARE MOCKUP IMAGES. FINISHED PRODUCT MAY VARY**
