JULIA JOHANSEN

“Good music makes me feel deeper, it makes me move intuitively, it excites me, or it's soothing. But most of all, it’s inspiring,” Julia Johansen, singer and multi-instrumentalist of Indie Rock band, Oracle Sisters, enthuses. Chatting from her home in the French countryside, just 45 minutes south of Paris, amongst a quiet community of artists, we caught up on the craziness of the rising band’s past five or so years. 

Portraits by Jasa Muller. Words by Ella Mansell

Before music fully took over, Julia lived many lives as a model, hopping all over the world for one shoot or another. One standout memory? Shooting 50 wedding dresses across eight honeymoon locations in Kenya for a bridal magazine. “We were in the Masai Mara, meeting tribes, shooting near rivers with hippos nearby. Luxurious tents, surreal landscapes – it was wild.” India followed, along with countless other places. Living out of a suitcase, Julia learned more about who she was: “I realised I’m competitive by nature,” she laughs, “but patience – that’s something modelling really teaches you.”

Music, though, is different. “I feel more vulnerable with music because I’m using my voice,” she says. Interestingly, modelling helped prepare her for it. “On set, you become different characters,” while, for Julia, on stage, there is no character to hide behind: “I don’t know if I’ve developed a stage persona, but courage is essential in both modelling and music.”

Her musical roots trace back to her Helsinki-based childhood. A rhythm-obsessed father, always tapping on tables and steering wheels. A mother with a dusty guitar from her youth, which she would pick up once in a while. Julia herself was fascinated by the instrument and eventually went to a music conservatory. When she moved to Paris in 2016 for modelling and to be an avatar extra in Luc Besson's sci-fi film, Valerian, the guitar re-entered her life – then songwriting, then drums. And then, Oracle Sisters. One thing led to another, as it tends to.

The band’s origin story feels part coincidence, part fate. Founding members Lewis Lazar and Christopher Willatt had known each other since school in Brussels but life pulled them apart – to  Edinburgh, New York. Years later, the pair met again in Paris with the same idea: to start a musical project. Oracle Sisters was already taking shape when Julia entered the picture, who was introduced to Lewis at a book signing. “He mentioned they were looking for a drummer. I told him I play drums, mostly slow songs,” she recalls. “I’d only been playing for seven or eight months.” She muses how bold that seems, looking back. Still, she went for it. When they rehearsed together, something clicked. “It felt organic – almost mystical.”

From there, the band’s evolution unfolded naturally. Their first two EPs, Paris I and Paris II, were conceived as a two-part love letter to the city where the trio met: Paris. “You have an idea of songs that you want to put together. Then, it’s about carving out a sort of world around them – sonically as well as conceptually,” Julia explains. Paris’ Exposition Universelle of 1900 (which marked a shift in the art world from “old” to “new”) formed a “utopian musical exploration”: the first EP reflecting a brighter future and the second one something darker. Meanwhile, the French capital’s artistic legacy – and the group’s modern interpretations of it – runs front and centre through it all.

Oracle Sisters may be rooted in Paris, but their world keeps expanding.

Next came Oracle Sisters debut album Hydranism. When the pandemic hit again in late 2020, the band found themselves locked down on the Greek island of Hydra, staying for a month as seasons shifted and storms rolled in. “It sounds dark, but the album is actually quite light,” Julia explains. There’s romance in the contrast – writing uplifting songs while the world pauses, Leonard Cohen’s house, marking Hydra’s musical legacy, just five minutes away: “We felt embraced by the island, and I think the songs reflect that feeling, that was very uplifting for us.”

Oracle Sisters' albums, Hydranism, 2023 and Divinations, 2025

Their latest album, Divinations, carries a different energy – shaped by an intense world tour spanning Europe, the US, and by chance, Japan. “It’s more raw, more fast-paced,” she says. Recorded mostly in Montreuil in spring 2024, the band locked themselves into a house three hours east of Paris, cooked, switched instruments, and jammed by the fire. It was the first time the three had spent a full week alone with each other. This album “reflects our impressions of the different places we discovered, from Texas to Japan, that came through as almost dreamlike memories from our unconscious. So Divinations is less romantic and more bold and moody, but with a mystical undertone,” Julia explains. 

The world tour that led to Divinations spanned 2023, and the world. Touring, Julia admits, is both euphoric and exhausting. “You create a little family,” she says. There’s little privacy, but unforgettable nights: sweaty low-ceiling venues in Barcelona, grand theatres in Paris, historic venues like KoKo in London, LA’s Lodge Room, Toronto, Nashville’s rich musical legacy, Pioneertown’s legendary Pappy & Harriet’s. Driving through the Navajo Nation and Iowa’s endless straight roads, seeing the vastness of America –  it all leaves an imprint. Afterwards, it takes time to come back down. “I dreamed for a month that I was still on tour.”

Travel seeps into Oracle Sisters’ visuals too. Morocco’s famous souks and rolling deserts hosted three music videos in one week – Tramp Like You, Hail Mary, and Ruby on the Run. Staying in two friends’ artistic residency-riads in Marrakech, the band leaned into spontaneity with their film director friend. “We love cinema. We want people to remember the landscapes, the feeling.” Hail Mary’s music video (as well as Tramp Like You from Hydranism) was shot on 16mm film, while the aesthetic and non-verbal storytelling was also partly inspired by 1920s and 30s silent cinema.

Looking ahead, there’s more on the horizon. A third Oracle Sisters album is in the works via countryside jamming sessions – Julia’s three cats are overseeing the process. Solo projects also beckon. “I’d love to make an album in my mother tongue,” she says. Genre-wise? Open. “Maybe something with interesting beats. We’ll see.”

As for her personal musical favourites (and influences), the list is long and lovingly eclectic: Miles Davis, Nick Drake, Minnie Riperton, Oklou, OutKast, Nirvana, and Tony Allen – and above all, Brazilian music from the ’60s and ’70s. “It’s music I never get bored of,” she says. Jazz, too, inherited from her father, remains close to her heart. A good song transcends genre, Julia notes. “Lyrics are important, but sometimes the music carries the lyrics more than the lyrics carry the song. Good music has soul.”

This interview appears in The MUSIC Issue 16, available here.