The Julie Mittens - Self Titled

The Julie Mittens
The Julie Mittens
(03.2008, Holy Mountain)
Verdict = Ulcer Inducing

First off, The Julie Mittens is an awesome band name. We seem to be a little preoccupied with band names here at FG which is good, because bands names are almost as important as the music… Selling point number two: the release comes to us from the illustrious Holy Mountain imprint. If you aren’t familiar with their catalog already, you should be. Anyway, The Julie Mittens evoke some obvious imagery: femininity or whichever lanky girl that you know named Julie (we’re familiar with a few here at the office), the hand warming products of childhood when fingers are too small to be relegated to their own individual cloth encasing and somehow mittens also remind me of kittens. So over all it is a pretty cute and cuddly scene. The actual musical content of the disc is another story. I just recently completed my final for my literary history class which culminated in a series of essays on all of the literature we had covered in the class. Problem is, I didn’t really read any of the literature we were assigned in class and I definitely didn’t study. The result was about a gallon of acid churning and destroying my stomach as a result of the stress. Essentially, this is the effect that The Julie Mittens music creates. Separated into for extended jams each with corresponding dates as titles (assumedly the date in which they were recorded), The Julie Mittens churn out an assault of improvised aural squalor that screams and screeches so terribly that the already lengthy tracks seem even longer than they actually are. There really isn’t any form here either, no certain movements or composition, just straight for the jugular instrumental abuse. I can see, maybe just an inkling of what the band is trying to accomplish, but overall this is just terrorizing music in a more negative than not way that you will probably never play twice (that is, unless you like stressful final exam situations).

-Mr. Thistle

The Julie Mittens - "April 3 2007"