Julia Lucille: “I Don’t Think I Can”

All this week, the Song of the Day spotlights artists performing at SXSW 2017.

Austin’s Julia Lucille comes from the same local mini-scene that’s given us Artist of the Month alumni Cross Record and Molly Burch as well as RF Shannon and Jess Williamson. Like those four, Lucille uses country and folk as a jumping off point to play with the forms, teasing out an otherworldly mysticism from their roots. The title of her new album, Chthonic (pronounced “thonic”), even refers to the idea of the underworld, which the ancient Greeks conceived of as bordered by a flowing river.

Fittingly, “I Don’t Think I Can” sounds like a river-bound journey. Recorded at Cross Record’s Dripping Springs studio, the song slowly paddles out under a haze of pedal steel guitar and Lucille’s church-like harmonies. The Pedernales is her River Styx: wild and difficult, but beautiful all the same.

“I Don’t Think I Can” appears on Chthonic, out April 7.

–Art Levy // host, Sunday 10 a.m. – 2 p.m., producer, My KUTX

Julia Lucille at SXSW 2017:

Tuesday, Mar 14 – Beerland (day party) – 4:45 p.m.

Wednesday, Mar 15 – ColdTowne Theater (day party) – 4 p.m.

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