JULIA BHATT Releases Imaginative Animated '1:30' Video

"I think that living via social media is taking somewhat of a toll on me even though that's where most of my following lies," says 19 year old genre-jumping Miami-based indie artist Julia Bhatt on the topic of her newest track "1:30" (titled to honor the track's "1:30" time stamp). The accompanying animated video premiered via Under The Radar and it features a shadowed entity that personifies Bhatt's feelings of "seeing social media figures literally everywhere" which serve as a constant reminder about "watching from the outside when you feel you could be doing more." The single which was released in February showcases her witty personality, fast-paced wordsmithing, and disgust for social media hierarchy within the music industry. She adds, "I think it's a pretty talked about subject, but people are getting record deals and opportunities simply because they get INCREDIBLY famous on social media, most times not even for singing."

The animator of the video, Madyn Garretson (who also animated Julia's "Bird Girl" video), says they discussed Bhatt's inspirations and what kind of video she wanted and decided to go for a fantasy/action narrative. Garretson explains, "The process was challenging in that I wanted to fit the most amount of story I could into a very short song. All in all, this is a video I had a lot of fun animating and I can't wait to see how it is received!" Garretson says she made the video with Procreate on an iPad and Adobe After Effects on a Macbook Pro.

As Bhatt has been down in Miami during this past year due to the pandemic, she hasn't been able to travel up to NYC to work with her producer Elliot Jacobson [a much in-demand producer who has worked with Ingrid Michaelson, Elle King and Vérité], so she's had to do the production stuff for these newly written songs on her own via Ableton Live. She adds, "That has impacted my creative process in a huge way because I'm starting to write songs on software rather than a guitar. It opens tons of possibilities and sounds, so I've got a lot of cool stuff coming. '1:30' is a result of that. That's the upside." She explains the downside is that since she can't do the technical things that Jacobson can do, they have to "send it back and forth a million times and talk over voice messages." This new way of working also began as a self-proclaimed "experiment," as it touches on modern pop elements a little bit more than her previous releases. Since Bhatt was raised on a stimulating and expansive musical diet listening to everything from classic rock, American songbook standards and bossa nova beats, this exploration into using more modern sounds is a whole new undertaking for her.

Bhatt released her debut single "Tall" in October 2019, her second single "Marco" followed that November and in January 2020 she released a groovy single "I'm Cool." She graduated high school that February and announced her first ever tour at the beginning of March 2020, just before everything came to a sudden halt due to COVID restrictions. Not letting the pandemic stop her, she released her fourth single "Miami" (an ode to her hometown) at the end of March, and in September, in tandem with the announcement of her debut EP 2 steps back, she released the animated video to a new stand-alone single "Bird Girl." Her debut EP 2 steps back was released that October and it features a collection of four tracks, three of which were previously stand-alone singles that signaled Julia as a critically-hailed, buzzworthy artist, as well as a brand-new unreleased tune, "Vampires Suck."

Watch the video here:

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