Julia Shapiro

This is the sound of someone who’s undergone collapse (physical and emotional) and then utilised sound and technology to rebuild themselves. With modern life’s pressures a perpetual onslaught of agitated accrual, sooner or later it can (and will) become renewal.
Thematically covering existential escape from/to and yet yearning to go back to ‘there’, it’s a diary of a somebody who’s lost their footing, but learnt to walk again.

Playing virtually every instrument on this lo-fi (ergo muffled, fuzzy atmospherics that smother and balm) cathartic album, Chastity Belt’s Julia Shapiro emancipates herself and breaks free from the self-imposed perception of norms and externally supposed forms. You are not who they think you want you to be.

‘Perfect Vision’ is an aptly titled release that analyses the dichotomy of the real(ity) of you(rself) up against the demands of ‘matching up’ to aggressive advertising ideals and product propaganda designed to make you feel inferior and lacking.

The self-questioning ‘Natural’ is a gentle introspection wherein Shapiro ponders ‘How can someone be so blindly confident, I wanna know that trick’. Self-esteem is but a dream others have she appears to philosophise. However, over-confidence breeds arrogance she further surmises.

‘Parking lot’ is a metaphorical circling of a never-ending destination, the incessant push/pull of exposure/closure, going round and round with no end in sight. Shapiro breathlessly intones ‘I don’t wanna go back’. The shimmering ‘Shape’ evokes Cocteau Twins’ ethereal, murky quirkiness that lurks deep within. Excavate to accumulate.

The titular ‘Perfect Vision’ epitomises the back-to-basics approach necessary to start over and recover the sense of muddled identity.

Ripping the rule book up and regaining control are the first steps to rebirth, where the notion of perfection resides solely in your reflection of self.