Julia Weldon is a wide-eyed lover of life. After meeting an intriguing stranger, she set off on a formative cross-country trip. Her insatiable wanderlust led her to hidden coves and barren landscapes and to create her first eponymous single, Marian.

It was while driving hundreds miles from her home in New Jersey that she found a sound that at once expresses urban malaise and rural expanse. It’s the harsh city edges, the liminal open fields, the rough and soft sounds that make her music a pleasant paradox that draws immediate attention. Julia’s prepossessing personality and brashly honest music crosses bridges and divides. And while her music straddles genres, its understated universality is in the emotions it expresses.

Julia is a profilic, New York City-based guitarist, songwriter, and composer. Some of her influences and idols are: Bon Iver, The Dodos, Bob Dylan, Elliot Smith, KT Tungstall, Melissa Ferrick, The Be Good Tanyas, Mirah, Cat Power, and Iron and Wine.

She headlines at reputable venues like the Knitting Factory and Mercury Lounge and plays up and down the east coast. Recent festivals include Chicago’s 2008 Decibelle Festival and the 2010 Women’s Experimental Music Festival in Brooklyn. Her first, self-titled album was a DIY project with intimate grit, but she is currently finishing a fully produced and realized 12-track album with a renown producer, Saul MacWiliams. The song “Meadow” is a sneak peak of that album.

- Charis Emily Shafer