Julia Holter

Then I turned it up and it sounded like the greatest thing.

This was my experience with "Chaitius" in particular. It didn't make sense until I turned up the volume and could take in all of the detail.

I'm not sure which track I like most yet. One of "Underneath the Moon," "In Gardens' Muteness," or "Turn the Light On" probably.

One of the major stumbling blocks for Julia's music, that I still have to kind of mentally ignore, is her tendency to rely upon kick-snare-kick-snare kind of straight-ass patterns, from Ekstasis onward this became a real part other language, this rhythmic squareness that seems at times deliberately static and numbing. On the new one, this "Polka setting" sound is only really a feature in a couple songs-- "Les Jeux To You" has a knees-up-Mother-Brown moment. It is not my favourite thing about Julia's music, it reminds me of St. Vincent's over-reliance on "straight-4 kicks on almost every song", and seems to (to my ears) often keep the music grounded instead of allowing it to take flight. That's my only perennial criticism about her stuff, she's one of my favourite musicians otherwise. It's great to hear (on this album) a return to the more formless stuff that first attracted me to Tragedy

that rhythmic squareness is something that really bugged me about her music previously and always prevented me from really getting into it up until this album. on the rare occasion it does show up on Aviary it doesn't bother me though because it actually works with the songs it's used on

Yeah I agree

"Colligere," what a beautiful track.

vinyl feels like the right format for this record, the chunking helps it feel less oppressive

She's playing the Funkhaus? Ooh!

Just booked tickets. Thanks!

I have never been there, are you supposed to sit? I saw her in the Berghain on the Wilderness tour and it was great.

I listened to it again today and agree with Alex. Even by the time I got to the second half (did someone here call that half the "bangers"? because they aren't bangers), I felt worn down. I suspected that, objectively, I was hearing good songs - but I'd grown so accustomed to her vocal and musical personality by that point that they didn't feel fresh.

(did someone here call that half the "bangers"? because they aren't bangers)

i was joking but the melodies do get straighter in that half imo

"Everyday is an Emergency" is the hardest track for me, though I'm not sure that it's meant to become easy. The rest of the first disc really opened up with repeated listenings. I didn't expect that "Another Dream" would be one of my favourites.

Surprised no-one has name-checked Alice Coltrane here, as a reference. This is such a free-jazz record, in terms of creating your own space and inhabiting it like no on else could. Presenting us mortal listeners not just a world of sound, but presenting a world of sound and escaping from it, traveling to new worlds, all in the same 60 minutes or so. It's incredible. This record is huge.

Man, I love the section in "I Shall Love 1" from 1:25 until the vocals come back in.

wow i'd never heard the walking by jane siberry, what a record!

The rhythmic stiffness thing has occasionally bothered me about JH but usually only when the tempo goes above a certain level (When The Sea Called Me Home is my least favourite on the last album). And it really hampers the second song, Whether, here.

The counterpoint to this is that if that was all she was interested in doing rhytmically then you wouldn't get, say, the weird lopsided skank on Underneath The Moon, and there's always a lot going on in the rhythmic interplay between the various instruments.

I think "Whether" is effective as grounding and contrast within the album as a whole. I like the big outro. But I haven't heard any other Julia Holter albums yet, so the last thing I noticed while listening to Aviary was an over-reliance on heavy-plodding rhythmic stuff.

I have never been there, are you supposed to sit? I saw her in the Berghain on the Wilderness tour and it was great.

― Ich bin kein Berliner (alex in mainhattan), Monday, 5 November 2018 23:43 (yesterday)

It depends I think on which room she will play in. I've seen Gas and Casper Brötzmann there and people sat on the large steps on the floor.

The last time she played in Berghain it was on the same night as Joanna Newsom's gig in the Admiralspalast, for which I already had tickets

unlikely I'll get into this album but I'm confident I'd love it live, no shows in DK though

Uh, yes, she's playing at Roskilde :)

whaaaat that's great! I'll be looking forward to that

In my opinion, The Walking is one of the great lost masterworks of the 80s. I wrote on our blog:

https://devonrecordclub.com/2011/02/18/round-2-toms-selection/

When someone alluded to Bird In The Gravel upthread, my interest in Aviary was piqued as the final cut on The Walking is, to my ears, one of the most remarkable 10 mins in recorded music.

I have yet to hear Aviary...but I expect to be disappointed as nothing could be THAT good!

don't expect anything at all otherwise you will surely be disappointed...

I love The Walking

I can’t decide what the hell is going on with it. The piano part slaved to MIDI, every note programmed at the same velocity, it’s this bizarre accident of marrying “wow MIDI is cool” with such a heartfelt lyric. I transcribed the piano part to learn it but the song loses its magic when the piano is humanized, oddly enough

"Everyday is an emergency" is amazing. The bagpipe sounds like the bright burning sun in the desert if it had a voice. When I was cycling across Crete in the summer of 1982 it was very hot and the crickets were making an incredible, infernal voice in the bushes and olive trees. It was deafening but I loved it. The bagpipe makes a similar relentless noise here. It is so intense.

I never got into Jane Siberry, for a start I don't like her elf-like voice. Julia Holter seems more grounded and closer to nature. At the same time physical and cerebral. The more I listen to Aviary the more I appreciate the formlessness and openness of most songs. There is something liberating and emancipating about the free flow of the tracks.

Whiney, get ready to make the poll

i don't think alex said anything ridiculously ott there other than characterizing jane siberry's voice as "elf-like"

listening to The Walking this is great, total bradbait!

surprised i'd never heard of this before

Really love this album more every time I play it. I have held off on trying to assess it properly with some sort of rating or one or two sentence synopsis and I'm glad I did. It's just not that kind of album.

The listener has earned the beauty of the second airy and bukolic half of this album after having had the stamina to get through the rough and claustrophobic first half. And in between there is the diamond "I shall love 2" which cuts them in two. The second half has indeed a touch of "Spirit of Eden".

this alb good

I sat on some bagpipes once by mistake and they made a ghastly noise. After hearing "Everyday is an Emergency" I now strongly suspect Holter was there recording the whole affair.

a Real Bronx Cheer

i've been listening to this on CD and there are some pretty fatiguing harsh frequency/distortion things going on in the first half - esp with the vocals at times - is this the case for anyone else? mastering thing or an artistic choice i guess is what i'm asking.

Oddly I've enjoyed this more on Spotify with wireless headphones than on vinyl. The first time I listened on vinyl and turned the thing off after 2 and a half songs. I've gone back a fair few times, but listened all the way through today for the first time when listening on Spotify. It might have been a coincidence - maybe I was just more in the mood. It's lovely and enchanting.

And I'm really enjoying what Alex is saying. Bring on the fucking poll.

there’s a run of a few songs on the back half of this that are 👌🏻

... call me another convert to the walking. amazing record

I’d be very pleased if one of the outcomes of this thread is a whole bunch of new fans of The Walking.

Traffic was especially slow for this evening's commute, so I was able to get through the whole of Aviary and, for the remnants of my drive, I decided to just go backwards with Julia and went with In the Same Room. Only got about three songs in, but man, that album is so good. Some of the (re)arrangements on it are very much in the vein of proto-Aviary. I've had and enjoyed all her albums for a couple years now, but Aviary really is turning me into a Holter Stan. It was beginning to get there after In the Same Room came out, but Aviary is just so fucking epic. All the comparisons to the Jane Siberry record feel really appropriate because the more I listen to Aviary, the more it sounds like one of those super idiosyncratic, intense and passion-filled albums that seemed to show up every few years in pop music since the late 60s. Those albums like Trout Mask Replica, Skip Spence's Oar, and I'm sure there's an entire thread dedicated to similarly confounding (yet also irresistibly fascinating) albums that completely defy most precedents. I know the album is still brand new, but I definitely see Aviary in that same class. It's just such an "I don't give a fuck" move for her, but that the music also happens to be absolutely captivating scores tons of points with me.

I'm gonna go smoke a blunt and listen to the rest of In the Same Room.

Also, yeah on the Julia / Alice Coltrane comparisons. If you had told me that same thing after Have You In My Wilderness came out, I probably would not have been able to hear it at that point. But, it really picks up on In the Same Room (if you're just looking for one representative song in this sense, skip ahead to 'Vasquez'; fraf). Holy hell. I'm just in complete MIND= B L O W N mode right now.

Sorry. I'm gonna go fuck off and listen to the Cardigans.

Agree, Austin. In the Same Room is easy to overlook and/or underappreciate but it's a solid album and the rearrangements are great.

It's so fucking good, man! Jeez, it's good.

And I'm really enjoying what Alex is saying.

Has she played this record out yet with a full band? I would imagine it could quite a force of nature live.

i don't think she's properly started touring it yet, but she's expanding her live band for this tour so it should be impressive. i'm hopefully going to see her in february

Hope to catch her live again at some point but I'd also love to see some live sessions for KEXP/KCRW/whatever.

like a Paul Bley album from 1986

Not to derail the thread but this lead me to his record with Chet Baker which is so damn near perfect right now I suspect witchcraft.

is it? fragments with surman, frisell & motian is about the most perfect ecm album imaginable.

I'm listening to this now - thanks for the recommendation. ECM is a lifetime's project.

The way the ground shifts under Another Dream.

Seeing her in two weeks and then again a week later with the Tashi Wada group. Can't wait!

I just found her NTS mix of inspirations for Aviary. It's fascinating if you've been spending a lot of time with the album, and confirms some of the comparisons above.

https://www.nts.live/shows/guests/episodes/julia-holter-26th-october-2018