Bio

As a singer, she’s self-taught. Far from any practice room, Julia’s voice has grown into a recognizable narrative from her effortless ability to hit the right notes with an appreciation for the many complexities life has to offer.

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Through the record ‘The Thrill of Loving You’, poet and singer Julia Werup embarks on her official debut as a jazz vocalist. Accompanying bassist Johnny Åman, pianist Sven-Erik Lundequist, and drummer/producer Thomas Blachman breaks new musical ground. The project is inspired by icons throughout the rich history of jazz – including the soothing sounds of Chet Baker, Billie Holiday, Monica Zetterlund, Abbey Lincoln, and Jacques Brel - who’s lyrics ‘Ne me quitte pas’ Werup has translated to Swedish ‘Lämna inte mig’ (‘Don’t Leave Me’).

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“I’ve chosen some of my favorite songs and lyrics I can mirror myself in. The tone is dark, although that wasn’t the intention. I probably ended up with these songs because I, myself, have a dark side that I decided to explore more in-depth”, she says. Perhaps she was ‘Born to Be Blue,’ to borrow a song title from the album ‘The Thrill of Loving You’.

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Werup has experienced how it is to navigate through life with a precarious compass but has achieved greater tranquility in recent years. In 2021 the award-winning movie ‘Julia & I’ was released. With the intimacy of a personal diary, filmmaker Nina Hobert, films her friend Julia and their friendship. Shot over several years, the documentary is a sincere portrait of two young women struggling with addiction, self-hatred, and identity crises. ‘Julia & I’ was the Winner of Nordic Award at CPH:DOX 2021. 

Julia spent most of her childhood in the Swedish countryside, with a few initial years in Paris, France. Her father was Jacques Werup, the famous author, poet, musician, and a central figure in a diverse and lively cultural environment. She grew up with jazz and has been a frequent participant in her father’s tours and performances, although she wasn’t particularly fascinated by the artistic life surrounding her family. She resisted, and her youthful rebellion was extended with an inclination to provoke. At the age of 16, she left home, firmly convinced that she was going down a completely different path than her parents. In her early 20s, she applied to study social work to follow her mother's advice on a sensible full-time job, but over the years Julia eventually chose art as a way of living. 

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She began performing with her band, started writing poems, and the words penetrated.

“I didn’t have any ambitions, as such. I just needed to get some things out of my system, out of my body… to express the sadness, loneliness, and restlessness of a young woman”, Werup shares. 

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Two collections of her poems were released by The Poetical Bureau, an underground publishing house in Denmark. The debut, ‘Ensamma Mäns Död’ (‘Lonely Men’s Death’, 2017) was written after the loss of her father in 2016. The follower, ‘Supernova,’ (2019) was reviewed by critics as “angry and well-lit lyrics that are best consumed as shots when saturated with rosé and ripe strawberries.” 

Blachman and Werup’s first collaboration was on the spoken word album ‘Blixtra’ (Universal, 2019). On ‘Blixtra,’ Julia Werup presented poems from Supernova and Ensamma Mäns Död, paired with music written by Blachman. It is an album that has been described as “a fun elegance of brutality and something sexy, yet vulnerable”.

Werup’s third collection of poetry “Bebop baby” was released by the publisher Baggardsbaroner in 2020. “Bebop Baby '' depicts the transition from being her very own human being to becoming the mother of another human being. A narrative between birth and death, an act between selfish drive and self-effacing care. What does it mean to be a mother when one has lost one's own? 

Werup was in her early twenties when she relocated to Copenhagen, the city that would become her base. She became an active part of the musical scene, expanding into techno, hip-hop and electronic deep-house music through collaborations with some of the genre’s most distinguished DJs and producers. Werup has collaborated with the rappers such as Jokeren and Kasper Spez, and explored her connection to words and music in the poetry and spoken-word scenes in Copenhagen, most recently with the performance group ‘Live On Vinyl.’ 

Her diverse artistic and professional networks have expanded over the years with performances in company with the pianist Jan Lundgren, and in ‘Black Dalia’ - a musical journey together with the saxophonist and composer Thomas Hass, paired with Werup’s lyrics, sung and recited by herself and vocalist Marte Schau.

During the covid-19 lockdown, Werup created the most recent project ‘THE MOON ORCHESTRA’ together with vocalist Marte Schau and percussionist Simona Abdallah. The project started as a jam session in her home studio and is based on improvised meditation music produced by Blachman, released as EP in 2021.

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