Julia Jacklin's 'The Gem' Took a Year Instead of Two Weeks and You Can Hear the Patience
The sessions were meant to take two weeks. They took a year — December 2024 through December 2025, at Rat Shack in Melbourne, with Robert Muinos co-producing alongside Jacklin and handling engineering and mixing himself. Treble reports the room sat above a Melbourne bar called The Gem, which is where the title comes from.
The Sonic Breakdown
The Production & Mix
The Low-End: This is a band record, and the band is small and specific: Jacob Diamond on guitar, Mimi Gilbert on bass, Jess Elwood on drums. Uncut, giving it four stars, named the quality that a year in one room buys you: “What’s striking about it is its looseness, even at its most lyrically turbulent.” The rhythm section is allowed to breathe rather than lock, which is a harder thing to mix well than it sounds.
The Spatial Dynamics: Muinos engineered and mixed what he co-produced, and the record was mastered twice for two formats — Jordan Power handled digital, Anne Taegert cut the vinyl. Paste heard the payoff in how grounded it all stays: “The down-to-Earth nature of the album’s sonic fabric makes its grand ruminations on the divine feel earned.” For a tracklist carrying titles like “God Sometimes” and “If I Had The Hand Of God,” that groundedness is load-bearing.
Standout Performance
Jacklin’s delivery on “The Hardest Thing.” Treble’s Virginia Croft singled out her “careful, deliberate delivery” of the line “The hardest thing to do / is believe it when you say I love you” — a line that only works if the singer refuses to oversell it, and she does.
Why It’s Certified
Because it knows exactly what it is about. Slant, four stars: “Again and again, the album’s 10 songs return to the small ways Jacklin and the people around her fail to show up for one another.” The Guardian, also four: “Blending mystery and intimacy, The Gem offers a window into the contradictions of Jacklin’s smart, sensitive mind.” musicOMH: “It all adds up to an album which will only enhance Jacklin’s burgeoning reputation as one of her generation’s finest songwriters.” Record Collector, four stars, entire verdict: “A jewel.”
Closer “I Wish” brings in The Maes. Stay for it.