Julia Easterlin

Julia Easterlin (born March 14, 1989) is an American singer, songwriter and baritone ukulelist whose music draws from elements of world-beat, chamber-pop, folk and contemporary classical music.

She has collaborated with artists Vieux Farka Touré, Bill T. Jones, Kris Bowers, Shahzad Ismaily, Bobby McFerrin, and Alex Toth of Rubblebucket, among many others. She has also worked as a co-writer and contributing vocalist with Mason Jar Music for The New York Times.

Her early work entails extensive use of a loop pedal to compose and perform wide-ranging a'capella music for a single voice. She departed from this style briefly in 2015 with the release of Touristes, her collaborative project with Malian guitarist and singer Vieux Farka Touré.

In 2017, Easterlin set her loop pedal aside indefinitely to release her first full-length solo album: an acoustic chamber-pop work Light of a Strange Day, under the moniker Hite. The album was produced by Shahzad Ismaily and Charles Van Kirk and released to critical acclaim.^[1]

In 2019, Easterlin joined the touring ensemble for dream-pop artist Barrie as a bassist and background vocalist. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Biography[]

Born into a musical family, Julia Easterlin cites her mother's singing and her grandfather's gift of a piano as formative parts of her musical experience.^[2] She enrolled in a school of fine arts after moving to Augusta, Georgia at age 6 where she learned about world music, jazz, and opera. Later, in 2007, she started studying at Berklee College of Music on a full merit scholarship.^[3] Her accomplishments have included performing as part of the TEDxWomen L.A. event in 2011, being named one of only 20 U.S. Presidential Scholars in the Arts in 2008, and performing at the Stockholm Jazz Festival in 2015.^[4][5][6] As of fall 2014 she has also played in 10 Sofar Sounds shows.^[7]

Known for her looping technique, Easterlin uses primarily a BOSS RC-50 loop station, a Shure SM58 vocal mic, and, sometimes, a floor tom.^[8] The vocal looping technique has since been popularized by Tune-Yards, Andrew Bird, and Imogen Heap.^[8] Easterlin's experimental style can be described as a combination of several different musical genres which she came across through her education and upbringing such as jazz, gospel, and Southern folk. She has named Björk and Philip Glass as influences.^[2]

In 2017, Easterlin began pushing her music outside the realm of her usual looping and layering with the release of "Light Of A Strange Day" via Six Degrees Records. Featuring baroque pop and Appalachian folk music elements, the acoustic album soars with lyrical expression, focusing on storytelling rather than the twirling and twisting of sound. The result is a whole new kind of musical work for Easterlin which John Schaefer of NPR Music calls "at once lovely and unsettling... a striking debut."^[9]

This departure from her previous use of looping also marks a departure from her artistic identification as Julia Easterlin, hence the use of her new pseudonym "Hite." She explains that "releasing [the record] under the Julia Easterlin name (which is so attached to loops and upbeat, poppy vocal music) felt somehow… dishonest. It's been a decade since I wrote my first piece of looped vocal music, and I needed a fresh new home for my new music, so different from previous work."^[10] When it came to choosing a new name, the choice seemed obvious; "Hite" is her middle name and her great-grandmother's maiden name.

Discography[]

• Go Straightaway! (2012)
• v e s t i g e s (2013)
• Touristes with Vieux Farka Touré (2015)
• Light of a Strange Day (2017)

References[]