Julia Marcell

Julia Marcell

Julia Marcell is a singer-songwriter from Olsztyn, Poland, based in Germany. Her work is associated with alternative pop, anti-folk, baroque pop and pop, and she is also linked with piano-led and acoustic song forms. She starts composing at the age of 14 and learns the piano around 2007, a year that marks the beginning of her recording career.

Career

Marcell releases her first recording in 2007 as the Storm EP, a set of piano-based pieces with string arrangements. Later that year, with support from fans using the Sellaband platform, she raises US$50,000 to finance her first studio album. That album, It Might Like You, appears in Germany in 2009 and is produced by Moses Schneider, who has also worked with Beatsteaks, Kreator and Tocotronic.

In 2008, she records a duet with Cuban American dark cabaret singer Voltaire, titled “This Sea”, which appears on his album To the Bottom of the Sea. Voltaire also covers her song “Accordion Player” on the same album. From 2010, Marcell tours extensively in Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic, Finland, Japan and the United States.

Albums and collaborations

Marcell’s second studio album, June, is released in 2011 and shows a marked shift in style, with more rhythmic writing and electronic instrumentation. The album’s singles include “Matrioszka”, “CTRL” and “I Wanna Get on Fire”, each issued with accompanying promotional videos or releases. For June, she receives the Paszport Polityki prize in the Popular Music category in 2011. In 2012, she is nominated for seven Fryderyks and wins one of them.

She collaborates with Voltaire again in 2014, providing additional vocals on “The Devil and Mr. Jones” from his album Raised by Bats. Her third studio album, Sentiments, is released in 2014, and “Manners” is issued as one of its featured tracks with a music video.

Band

Her band line-up includes Mandy Ping-Pong on viola and vocals, Thomsen Slowey Merkel on bass, and Sebastian Schmidt and Thomas Fietz on drums.