Julia Holter

This is a wonderful record.

I think it's awesome. I went home over Christmas and played it to my parents cos I thought they'd be into it and my mum said it sounded like Enya :(

enya is awesome!

someone posted a song from this on tumblr and i really liked the track in isolation, but i couldn't really get into the album

My teenaged son asked for Ekstasis for Christmas. I haven't listened to the whole thing yet, but I like the bits I've heard. I can understand the Enya comparison, haven't heard anything that reminds me of Broadcast yet.

this plane is taking... off.

ekstasis probably by most-listened-to album of 2012, unless you count that le1f mix which i dunno is that an "album"?

It's Enya on drugs

the song structures are more interesting than enya's

Marienbad sounds like a Jon Anderson track on a Yes album

Reading about Holter today (post-ilx poll) and found out about the Tombstones project that Julia appears on.

More here.

Pre-listening, at the moment I started reading I found this REALLY REALLY exciting. Current avant-garde compositional practice in pop is a thing in my head as I have ideas about what they could sound like -- a music that really exists in my head but here it was. But the first couple of tracks are more like a composer (any composer) subsuming a piece of pop music (i mean it could be pop, or aboriginal music, or Verdi) into their own to such an extent that it becomes 'Wandelweiser' pop except the pieces are short (and music from this end of things can be long and seemingly static, but continuous).

I'll finish the listen tomorrow.

Oh yeah, that's on my "To Listen" Spotify playlist. Can't remember whether I knew about the JH connection. Thanks for the nudge!

i got into this last night heavy. still enjoying it so much. i never expected it to be this warm. i'm hardly able to talk about it using the language that she uses, but the touch that i can only imagine to be the much-discussed "medieval influence" is really quite wonderful. the grandiose nature of the music reminds me of OPN a little; there's something similar organic about the sweeping synths they both use. but i think holter has a more straightforward, less overtly postmodern appeal.

anyways, i've really been loving both tragedy and ekstasis. pity i wasn't up on this for the EOY polls

"boy in the moon" prompted me to order a copy of blade runner on VHS.

Good grief:
http://toronto.en.craigslist.ca/tor/mis/3650607077.html

Saw her perform last night in the midst of a video installation at The Walker Art Center. She's pretty much an introvert, doesn't really say much, but the music was lovely, including a charming version of Roxy Music's "2HB."

I got lost and wandered around in the rain for an hour on the way there, so I only made it to the third set. But yeah, it was a good show, I'm still glad I went.

New album out August 19: Loud City Song

01 World
02 Maxim’s I
03 Horns Surrounding Me
04 In The Green Wild
05 Hello Stranger
06 Maxim’s II
07 He’s Running Through My Eyes
08 This Is a True Heart
09 City Appearing

http://www.factmag.com/2013/05/22/julia-holter-announces-gigi-influenced-new-album-loud-city-song/

with the exclusive iTunes bonus track, "Goddess Eyes III"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmT7GKPsxto

with the exclusive iTunes bonus track, "Goddess Eyes III"

IIRC

Goddess Eyes
Ekstasis: Goddess Eyes Part II
Ekstasis III

third one takes place in afghanistan and is kind of nagl TBH

JH takes on contemporary culture, reveals herself to be as boring as everyone else

http://pitchfork.com/features/update/9147-julia-holter/

also LOL @ "bookstore-themed coffee shop in Echo Park"

i went to see julia holter. i have thoughts about the the sorta divide, with her songs, between more upfront, melodic songs & slightly mannered, laurie-anderson-ish material. her voice is overwhelming. but she played a cover, from the new record, that was really incredible, of hello stranger,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-VDbbjIto4

i also saw julia holter, on her first show of the tour in DC. I thought she was pretty good, and the addition of the violin to her lineup was great. i was really blown away by the opener, jessica pratt, though! she was so awesome! however, i played her music to my girlfriend the next day and was told that she "sounds like jewel". so now i'm having existential doubts about my taste in music.

i've never seen her solo but i saw her backing linda perhacs the other week

(nite jewel, too)

Hey, how was Perhacs?

oooooh, I'm imagining Julia singing "Hello Stranger," and it's just the sound I need in my head right now!

perhacs was great - they managed to pull off 'parallelograms' live and she played a whole ton of new stuff, which sounded REALLY good. new album coming later this year i think?

The new album gets a good review in this month's The Wire

my thoughts so far is that 'Maxim's II' is the banger on this album

have a copy of 'Ekstasis' somewhere which I need to go back to

loving the new record. great night music. bit like julee cruise in places but more abstract.

Shades of Stina Nordenstam?

show at Cecil Sharp House the other night was beautiful, keys-violin-cello-sax-drums lineup and everything so perfectly arranged.

"maxim's i" is nice. kinda reminds me of josephine foster

"city appearing" sounds a lot like broadcast. loving these trish keenan echoes

her drummer is bad in an interesting way, i think

No, her drummer is good.

really great album

Agreed.

I am amazed how good this new one is, given that she's releasing a great album every year - you'd think there would be a slump eventually.

i always want to like her but the new one is growing on me a lot more than previous ones have

I'm kind of the opposite - loved the first two but have been having a hard time getting beyond "that's nice" with Loud City Song. I miss the pop moments. "He's Running Through My Eyes" and "City Appearing" are the tracks I currently like best.

glad her career is doing well after whiney said that she's not music on twitter.

i mean, she's not, she's a human.

huh the new one seems poppier than her old stuff to me. or maybe just warmer.

I know it's easy to infer, but I keep feeling bits of Nite Jewel vibes in the new record, maybe in the pacing, backing/secondary vocal bits. Maybe if NJ was into slightly uncooler 80s stuff? Very lush stuff.

feel like new one is both more demanding _and_ poppier, there's kind of a wider gulf between the songs in that way

she and nite jewel are friends/collaborators

nite jewel is much more (though not exlcuisvely) obviously devoted to a retro sonic palette

Her cover of "Gold Dust Woman" on MOJO Presents Rumours Revisited is outstanding. It takes a haunting song and enhances its ethereal spookiness, without being at all twee. No easy comparisons to Enya here.

Anyone else going to the London show-in-a-church on Monday?