Julia Shapiro Shares Second Single off Forthcoming Solo Album, "A Couple Highs"

Local busybody Julia Shapiro of Chastity Belt, Childbirth, and Who Is She? is releasing her debut solo record, Perfect Version, this summer. Last month, she shared the album’s lead single “Natural” and today she’s following it up with the vulnerable, downtempo “A Couple Highs.”

The record was made in the aftermath of a break up with her long-term partner and a health scare that required her thyroid to be removed, resulting in a necessary cancelling of the last half of Chastity Belt’s tour to take care of herself. During this time of examination, she quietly started to write songs without much intention for them.

"I started recording stuff in my apartment just for fun,” Shapiro previously said in an interview with FADER about the album. “I wanted to learn how to use Ableton, and at the time, Chasity Belt wasn't doing that much. Our bassist moved to Los Angeles. I liked some of what I had done, and so I sent it over to Jason [Baxter] at Hardly Art, and he suggested that I put out a solo album. I ended up going into my friend's studio and recording the four songs that I'd already demoed. And then I was planning on just doing that for the rest of the album, but I started demoing more songs, and then I became attached to the demos. And I felt like, ‘What, these sounds good enough to me. Why don't I just hold onto these and just put these on the album?’"

“A Couple Highs” comes with a video inspired by the 2008 Kelly Reichardt-directed and Michelle Williams-starring film Wendy and Lucy. Perfect Version is out June 14 via Hardly Art. The album release show will take place on Thursday, June 27 at Barboza.

Below, watch the video for “A Couple Highs” and Chastity Belt’s KEXP in-studio performance from 2017.