JULIAN CALENDAR
SPEAKING A DEAD LANGUAGE - LP
UPC: 810096657879
Label: SUAH SOUNDS
Format: LP
Release Date: September 26, 2025
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Jul·ian Cal·en·dar noun
1 calendar introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C., superseded by Gregorian calendar in 1582.
2 alias of multimedia artist born in Berlin in 1989.
3 the name of the band she formed.
COS-PLAYING A BAND
“In my early twenties, I had a hard drive full of musical and lyrical ideas that I wanted to turn into songs,” Julian Calendar explains. “The problem was that I didn’t want to be in a band or play live.” So she hit on the idea of putting together a group who could flesh out, perform, and record her material. “I was looking for new ways to collaborate and subvert the traditional idea of a band. Most pre-fab acts are all about image and style, so I purposefully chose people who were older than me to front the band.”
Julian assembled the group while living in Charlotte, N.C. “There’s an amazing local music scene there,” she says. “Everything fell together quickly.” She recruited multi-instrumentalists Jeremy Fisher and Scott Thompson and paired them with two non-musicians as the band’s singers. Hannah Hundley was selected for her cinema background and novelist Jeff Jackson (whose work has been praised by Don DeLillo and NPR) was chosen to help shore up the lyrics.
They became the public face of the band. Over the years, Julian has added and subtracted members to this core line-up to keep the project fresh, most recently introducing tape manipulator and multi-instrumentalist Sean Robinson.
NO STYLE
Julian Calendar purposefully zigzags between styles. “Everybody listens to different genres,” she says. “Why should a band be bound by a single style?” The band’s early series of Crimson Static EPs (2020-2021) range across post-punk, disco, noise, new wave, and folk. Their most recent EPs employ loops and sampling, drawing on everything from Drum n Bass breakbeats to string arrangements. “Every musical possibility is on the table,” Julian insists. “We want to serve the song, not build some fucking brand.”
THE DEBUT ALBUM
Julian Calendar’s debut Speaking A Dead Language is based on songs from their live set. It’s more rock-oriented – imagine Sonic Youth mixed with The B-52s – but still eclectic. “It never stays in one place for long,” Julian confirms. There are garage rock rave-ups, hypnotic grooves, new wave anthems, and ambient lullabies. There’s even a cover of Green Day’s “Longview” that reinvents the song’s feel and meaning.
WORKING WITH PRODUCER JOHN AGNELLO
“John’s a legend for a reason. He’s worked with so many favorite artists like Dinosaur Jr, Kurt Vile, Mary Timony, Waxahatchee, The Breeders, etc. It was a dream to collaborate with him and watch how he gave the songs a muscular sound with so much detail and dynamics.”
WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY “SPEAKING A DEAD LANGUAGE”?
“Look, we know rock doesn’t have much cultural currency these days,” Julian says. “It isn’t a hip musical language, but there’s still beauty there and plenty of interesting things that can be done with its sonic vocabulary without resorting to nostalgia.”
TRACK LIST:
1. Black Moon 02:34
2. I Need a Hole 03:08
3. Longview 03:36
4. Keep Your Secrets 04:44
5. Sleeping Pill 03:11
6. Our Poison 03:25
7. My Treachery 03:16
8. Conjure Me 04:57
9. For Your Own Safety 01:35
10. Sleep Together 04:56
