Flight Artist Release: Julia Traser’s Debut Album Perfect Timing

Italian-born, Brighton-based singer-songwriter Julia Traser contemplates this notion on her debut album Perfect Timing, a breezy collection of wistful indie-folk that showcases her lyrical reflection and clear, glassy vocals that bring to mind Laura Marling or Sara Bareilles.

Born and raised in Livigno, a small town in the Italian Alps, Julia has been singing and performing since the age of 12. Initially inspired by the Lombard singer Davide Van de Sfroos, she started writing her own songs after discovering Jason Mraz and KT Tunstall, and was first influenced to pick up the ukulele by listening to Dodie.

Crowdfunded by almost 150 backers in May 2025, the album was recorded at South Lanes Studio in Brighton and produced by Adrian Bunn. The tracks are characterised by Julia’s baritone uke, and centring this is important as Julia feels it “forces me to collaborate with others, and helps to build and maintain the community around me”. That supporting cast includes an array of friends and collaborators from the fertile Brighton scene: Fin Anderson on drums, Leo Aram Downs on mandolin and guitar, Megan Tuck on backing vocals, Gabija Kasiliauskaitė on violin, Charlie Miller on trumpet and flugelhorn, Shaz D on keyboards and Kenji Lee on bass.

The title refers to the meandering journey she has taken to get to this point, and that “there is no such thing as perfect timing, so things just happen when they need to happen”, says Julia. This included a three month busking tour around Europe and a songwriting challenge to create a song a week for a whole year, which was the genesis for this album. “It took me quite a long time to get this album together,” says Julia. “I’d moved here from Italy, so I had to learn the language and it was a lot of adjusting. I always thought: ‘Am I late? I need to hurry up!’. Sometimes it’s really quite a lonely process. But actually, it’s fine for each individual and their story, because it happens in a certain way, and that’s what makes it special.”

The carefree, bossanova intro to ‘Hi You’ builds with restraint and classy understatement, blooming into classic folk pop without ever really letting loose. Vocals are foregrounded throughout, as in the crystalline melodies atop the finely crafted acoustic underlay of ‘Rainy Days’. These songs both seem to dissolve at the end: a sonic representation of resignation, an aural sigh.

Lyrically, the album considers issues of identity and belonging, and our wider place in the world. Moving to the UK to study, Julia initially felt the need to disguise or undermine her Italian heritage: “It’s interesting, because when I first moved here, I tried to hide my accent so much. The song ‘Good Morning Sir’ is about a guy that started being racist to me; there was a lot of shame and I was literally trying to hide my identity.” However, in the course of writing this album she has come to terms with it and embraced the influence it has on her work. “I have since come to realise that being Italian, and my heritage, is part of my story and what makes me unique. I have accepted that now, and it’s really important that it comes across and people can figure out where I’m from and who I am.” 

Despite the light, shuffling music of ‘Good Morning Sir’, which calls back to the late noughties indie folk scene, the subject matter has a more brittle core. And the repeated refrain “I often forget that I’m stronger than that Tony Stark” serendipitously aligns with the revival of Noah And The Whale, after ‘5 Years Time’ took centre stage in the recent Superman reboot.

‘Sing Another Song’ posits – or perhaps comes to terms with – the existential conclusion that “Nobody will remember us anyway”. The sparse, primarily solo instrumentation is expanded by occasional backing harmonies, artfully cooing in the middle eight. The feel is of someone lurching and yearning, looking inwards at herself.

Thematically, this and ‘Mr Second’ appear linked: asking questions of being remembered or forgotten, of making a mark on the world – or on someone? Lyrically there is a more despondent, defeated air to it, at odds with the lightness and tone of the music. This contrast runs through the album, drawing in the listener and catching them off guard; emotional resonance by stealth. “It’s that frustration I had when I graduated and I just couldn’t get into the industry,” says Julia, “contemplating ‘What am I doing, am I not trying hard enough?’. I thought, I’m not there yet, and so of course, they’re gonna get it first, because I’m always the one that comes second, just like, a minute after somebody else.” 

However, lines such as “Nobody will remember me … my story will mean nothing to you” do not come across as negative or defeatist, but rather active and empowered, seeking to move forwards and upwards. On the track’s standout line “Funny how a clock managed to catch me by the throat”, Julia expands: “I was so caught up with time passing, and was always in a rush to the point where it felt like I was gasping for air, the pressure was choking me and there was no time to relax”. And she notes the double meaning in the title: both the depersonalised character of ‘Mr Second’ who «never wins anything and is frustrated, always chasing their tail” and the interpretation that it can be read as “missed a second”.

‘Work A Little Harder, Care A Little Less’ comes in on an almost acoustic metal groove – chugging along on that ubiquitous ukulele and pattering toms. The chorus seems custom-built for audience singalongs: building and soaring, you can almost hear the crowd filling in and swirling around you.

‘Song For A Traveller’ feels like the album’s centrepiece, a modest epic – though still coming in at under four minutes, like the rest of the tightly plotted album – that bursts into life on each swell of the line “Staring at a map”. It is unclear whether the home being yearned for is Italy, England or elsewhere, but it reiterates Julia’s predilection with movement and her place in the world: of displacement, or fitting in, whether real or perceived. Is she running away from something or moving towards it? On this evidence, it is worth sticking around to find out, as there is much to remember her for.

Perfect Timing is out now.