Julia Holter

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

Excited to listen to that mix. Really amazing album.

Holy hell, she's into Steve MOTHERFUCKING Tibbetts.

I want to have her babies.

Notice that he has a writing credit on "Why Sad Song." I didn't realize it was a quasi-cover. The original is the final track in the NTS mix.

that nts set is great, thx for posting

Cool video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kNELAl5pb0

The concert in the Funkhaus in Berlin on the East side of the river Spree was brilliant. The venue, the old GDR radio building is quite special with the wooden floor, the maybe 10 Meter high ceiling, the steps you sit on and finally the stage which is rather in the middle and not at the end of the hall. I really enjoyed that I could clearly distinguish each instrument. Especially the restrained melancholic trumpet sound was amazing but I even loved the violin (usually I am not a big fan). Not to speak of the sonorous double bass, the bagpipes and the percussion. Holter's way of singing does not cease to impress me. The often pretty complex melodies and harmonies of the songs are in her voice which somehow often seems to go up and is really uplifting and transcendental. I really got used to the openness of the songs. My favourite was the encore "Betsy on the Roof" from "Wilderness" where her voice visits places nobody's voice has ever been to. Grand cru.

Envious! Glad you had a good time and I hope I get to see her with this expanded band. Has the setlist differed much from this one: https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/julia-holter/2018/schauspielhaus-bochum-germany-23972457.html ? Other than "Betsy" for the encore.

There were other small differences to that setlist. First they started with the calm "In Gardens' Muteness" and only then played the loud cacophonous "Turn the Light on" which sounds like they tune their instruments. I found that a good choice to go from silence to noise and not the other way round. And then there was "I Would Rather See" which she wanted to play solo on harmonium next time. The songs sounded all a little different than on record, not as explicit, slightly estranged. It was a magic evening.

I was there too, Alex. Great gig. Wonderful sound. My only quibble with the Funkhaus is that it is uncomfortable sitting on the wooden floor/steps.

You are right about that, I sat on the right side quite close to the stage and after about an hour or so as there was nobody behind me l laid down and stretched out my legs. I am not so sure about the sound actually,
I hardly understood anything of her in-between song banter. But the reason was probably that she kind of whispered into the mike.

She speaks so slowly that its actually hard to follow.

I think she spoke quite fast (in interviews she speaks slowly and articulates very well and is easy to understand), she seemed a little nervous and I had the impression that she spoke more to herself than to the audience.

both times I’ve seen her she’s nervously made lots of goofy in-jokes between songs

sounds great you guys, would like to see her in a setting like that

her voice is so mimsy

― lex pretend, Wednesday, 14 March 2012 18:00 (six years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've had the beginning of I shall love 2 in my head all morning where her vocals are indeed very mimsy, and it's made me realise how enamoured I am becoming both with this album and with those sorts of affected, contorted vocals more generally. I think her singing is great on this, she sounds v much like herself. All her albums have drawn power and dynamism from a sense of scale, that comfort & delight in personhood, the intimacy of being your small self in a vast swirling world. it's v affecting and charming to me.

Nothing like a excellent show to solidify your favourite album of the year, or maybe it’s an excellent album that’s solidifying my show of the year. In any case Holter is the cement that is setting quickly around my 2018 highs. Beautiful night. V well behaved audience.

Tashi Wada (who was the bagpipes and synth tonight) is leading a show with Holter next week and I think it will be quite different, but still cannae wait

Ugh, jealous. I'm weighing whether to make the trip to Montreal to see her in February. I'm dying to hear what something like "Chaitius" will turn into live.

This is pretty easily my favourite album of the year.

it was a really good show, she was extremely feeling herself in a way I found q inspirational and the audience were suitably enthralled. I have quite a way to go with getting a grip on this album and chaitius in particular is obscure w/ all the occitanian troubadour biz. it was quite fragmented live, but everything seemed simpler and breezier, more a matter of flowing between moments. she wrote "stay sweet in the melting world" on the album I bought. I'm glad she didn't write "the bananas are getting yellow!!!"

Cosign whoever it was who said this is a totally different album on headphones, there's so much digital trickery flying around the vocals in places, hidden sounds that are only noticeable up close.

Giving it my first listen after staying prudently away (don't know her well, I liked HYimW to some extent).
So far I really like its fragmentary and chaotic flowing nature, though it occasionally stalls (she did lose me around Everyday Is-Another Dream). I must be liking long open-form albums more than before. The one artist I think of is not Laurie Anderson or Coltrane but Meredith Monk; the three work of course, as it's both composed and free. Nice chameleon of an album, it is like a cascading collage of sounds, and after a while you forget that each minute is its own little pond. Impressive. Still five tracks to go.

She ducked under the synth and gave a few of us at the front a goofy wave at one point that made me chuckle. It's a good contrast - how playful she is within the very structured pieces of music.

OTM, I found her unexpectedly playful as a live performer, too.

I put on the new LP tonight for the first time and it was kind of blowing my mind. I was distracted with work tho. Gonna have make time to listen again when I can get nice and stoned and give it my undivided attention.

Also now tempted to splurge on some fancy headphones especially for the occasion