Julia Holter

Night Song just floored me in Morrisons.

there's a trebly sheen on her vocals and a general 'brightness' about the music that makes it harsh on the ears. only heard the mp3s, but i don't have this problem with Loud City Song.. maybe i'm just old. or is it the excessive orchestral lushness that's simply buggin'

New album is a real grower

This is an amazing album but I find it mentally jarring to listen to

Still getting to know it but I love the arrangements - so light and graceful, birdlike somehow, that balance of ornament and simplicity. Great autumn album too

The sax solo on Sea Calls Me Home is hot! Also love the way she stresses the syllables on the chorus. I appreciate some might find her vocals mannered, but to me she does it in a really interesting and charming way.

Not all the songs have hit me yet like that one or Feel You, but as paolo says, it's definitely a grower.

her stuff generally has a soporific effect on me

― calstars, Monday, September 28, 2015 10:04 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

weirdly i think holter would be OK with this!

love the way she stresses the syllables on the chorus. I appreciate some might find her vocals mannered, but to me she does it in a really interesting and charming way.

Yeah I was reading something where she was talking about trying to match her enunciation and the timbre of her voice to the character of the arrangement and it does make a lot more sense once you start listening to it that way.

Whistling part leading into the sax solo is funny in a very wyattish way

Have become very addicted to this record in the last 24 hrs

The lightness of the production suits the record and her voice I think, the only time it really bothers me is when the drums are one of the few elements of the mix, they sound tinny and weirdly stiff, but then this isn't much of a drumming record in general.

The melody that comes in halfway through Betsy completely slays me.

secret weapon on this is the bass playing (is it a double bass or a cello?)

On first listen, the ending of Lucette Stranded On The Island actually made me stop and gawp at my computer.

I liked Ekstasis but I couldn't get my head around Loud City Song so I'm pleased to have enjoyed my first listen. Going to come back to this some more, certainly.

think i've just listened to it seven times in a row now. more trapped inside it with every listen

'i feel like i'm walking around in glue' indeed

I liked Ekstasis but I couldn't get my head around Loud City Song so I'm pleased to have enjoyed my first listen.

Same here - this one seems to take what was good about Ekstasis and couple it with a much more pop sensibility. The specific part of Lucette, from "the birds can sing a song" onwards, is glorious.

LCS is my favourite.

Each of her albums seems poppier than the one before (this isn't a criticism)

I think if she wanted to she could shift a lot of units

she just needs to hook up with taylor swift's publicist

fwiw loud city sing seemed a little more 'difficult' than ekstasis to me

*song

Love every one of her records incl the new one but "Tragedy" is pretty unbeatable

Yeah, this is excellent. Only heard it for the first time tonight but it sounds wonderful. I'd only really known Loud City Songs before and although I heard that lots in the last two years I'm struggling still to remember if that was a lot more electronic than this, like I'm thinking. All of the influences above are right of course, but I can hear Robert Wyatt here as well, especially in the way she kinda talk sings against her own main vocal. Lovely.

This hasn't had the same impact on me as Tragedy or Ekstasis did but there's a sweet Roxy Music vibe through the album that I really like.

not really enjoying this that much (yet) - it's a bit too straight-forward and light compared to the previous records.

"betsy on the roof" sounds like siouxsie and enya collaborating in the best way possible

The level of attention to detail on this one is astonishing, virtually nothing is repeated without being reframed in some way, the arrangements change constantly, even if it's just bringing an extra violin line in or something. In general I think harmony (or at least the possibilities of harmony) are undervalued in current pop music and Holter is excellent at it.

not yet familiar with the new one, but the more nimble, uptempo tracks on Loud City Song are great.. the songs that aren't so ~dreamy~ and reverb-drenched. the instrumental qualities (LSS) are a bit more understated and dry, where the new one feels bigger, brighter, more 'lush', more sheen-y.

This is maybe my favourite album of the year.

This sentiment, I understand somewhat more.

Propose a deathmatch between people repping for this album and those on the Susanne Sundfør thread repping for that album.

That should sort this debate out!

Not so much in its sound, but its overall feel and structure it gives me the same vibe as Rickie Lee Jones' Pirates, which is one of my favourite albums ever, so.

This is maybe my favourite album of the year.

This has been my opinion for a month or so now, it really crept up on me.

must try and get into this again - i love the other records but perhaps find this too song-based or something

I don't know that it's my album of the year (nostalgia is pulling me towards that New Order album) but it's expansive brand of melting swooniness just intrigues me and spins me round and catches me unaware at the oddest of times. I find it hard to work to because every now and then it catches me with something jaw-dropping (like the skronk sax solo that suddenly opens out and becomes a whole *flock* of wailing-bird saxophones all fluttering round my head?) that sweeps me off my feet.

(Also, the lyrical sea/island theme reminds me of a very dear friend of mine.)

i love the other records but perhaps find this too song-based or something

Yeah whereas I like the other records but found myself wishing she'd use that approach in more of a pop context. Most of these are hardly 3min verse-chorus-verse pop songs in any case.

Yeah I'm with Matt on this, this captures her at just the right level of songful coalescence for me - in any other discography it'd typically be the artist's most oceanic and amorphous work.

Yeah they are still unusual for sure, and maybe I'll come around - and similarly it's not like the other records were so experimental as to abandon all song structure or choruses. I think, particularly with Loud City Song, there was a sort of density of feeling or atmosphere, whereas this does feel lighter, playful in a different way. I need to give it another listen or two having put it aside for a while.

xpost

Loud City Song is denser and heavier than the others though, it's only really the Nico-esque opening to How Long? that feels like that here. This one feels like a more pop-oriented take on Ekstasis.

Partly because of the sheen that hangs over most of this, but also due to the general scale of her ambition and all the sea/voyaging references, this really does remind me of the second half of Hounds of Love x the second half of Aerial. It's not that good obviously (that would make it the best album ever made), and I know comparing female solo artists to Kate Bush is lame, but it certainly feels similar *in spirit* if not in sound.

Second half of Aerial definitely. I definitely also see Robert Wyatt as mentioned upthread. And then apart from Rickie Lee Jones the other reference that comes to mind is Jane Siberry (but all mixed up between The Walking and Maria).

I think this is my third favourite album of the year up to now. I have not really listened to her earlier albums - only very cursory - but this immediately hit me. I guess it may have to do with the fact that it is more accessible, quite pop. Her voice and especially her peculiar way of cutting verses in the middle, totally wins me over. There is a certain enchanting mood attached to this album which I love. I don't know how to describe it, she hits a string in me. And on the other hand I miss some depth, everything seems to flow more or less freely without any rough edges.

pirates is a pretty good comparison. preferred lcs but i do love this new one. she might be my favorite act right now, or in any case she's on the shortlist.

Glorious things on this glorious record:

-"Ban-DI-do!"
-bifurcated saxophone on "Sea"
-Joni-isms on "Silhouette" paired with that ending!
-swarm of seagull-Holters over "Lucette"
-everything in the first half of "Betsy on the Roof"
-(very brightly) "I had a good excuse for being late!"
-"look at clouds-" "mirror" "clouuuuuuuds"
-string drones on "How Long?" threatening to cleave you straight off the surface of the earth
-everything in "Everytime Boots" (this is the one that really opens up with time ime)

Psyched to follow up on some the cross-references here and would also add that it's interesting to follow how she uses Robert Ashley as a source, going back and forth on the territory between his deadpan Martian-anthropologist thing and full-on thundering drama. How she does that here actually makes it more "out"/weird/whatever to me than LCS.

i'm digging this

Not so much in its sound, but its overall feel and structure it gives me the same vibe as Rickie Lee Jones' Pirates, which is one of my favourite albums ever, so.

― Tim F, Thursday, October 29, 2015 4:33 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wow yeah, have you written anything on pirates, perchance?

i find her voice even more of a barrier than ever with more accessible melodies - it's so flat and affectless but in a polite music teacher kind of way not an interestingly blank kind of way. she sings every word in exactly the same way and i don't feel a single thing, it's pleasant and occasionally lovely-sounding wallpaper

i'm sure it's a deliberate aesthetic decision, everything about this album is so careful and obviously thought-through, i can't get into it at all though

I went back to Ekstasis (my favourite prior to this) and while I can definitely see how some listeners would enjoy her earlier material more, HYIMW fees so sensuous and warm by comparison.

she sings every word in exactly the same way

I can understand not liking her voice, and I don't think she's an incredible singer by any means, but this isn't remotely true, unless you think she sings the opening of How Long? in the same as the chorus of When The Sea Called Me Home, or the second half of Lucette. The way she enunciated her Ts was really annoying on the first few albums but she's stopped doing that here, more or less.

I actually feel that the very considered nature of this record is what appeals to me, at a time when so much indie pop is so slapdash.

I've already had this argument with Lex on twitter about her vocal stylings, so I'm not going to rehash it, but yes.

What I really love about this record is that it is so mannered, and formal, and there's a restrained quality that makes the bits where she really takes flight seem all the more amazing. It's like you're walking through this perfectly manicured formal garden with perfectly clipped box hedges and immaculate edging and symmetrical borders, then you slip through a hole in the maze and you realise that the whole beautiful construction is on the edge of a wind-swept island, which makes you marvel at the artistry of it all the more.

xp well i definitely prefer this to all slapdash indie pop, yes

i like the mannered, formal feel to an extent, but it never steps outside that for me

branwell otm, mannered is the word I have used to describe it. although it's not as intense or theatrical as her previous, which is what I thought I valued most about JH, it retains that sense of poise and dignity. it's close to being boring but it brings that neat apollonian satisfaction and freshness

yeah that's a great description, branwell. this album is extremely immersive. it's like... when i listen to this album i go into this album.

there is something extremely pure about her voice so that it hits me directly into the heart. and the album is really of one piece, not one average song, it unfolds slowly which makes it even more memorable. ethereal is the word i'd use to describe her voice which is perfectly wrapped into the impressionist music with slight jazz echoes. this is definitely a night album and it should be great to see her perform the songs in the berghain on thursday, the club in which you forget if it is night or day time as it is always dark there. i was there once and it felt like a cathedral - the main room is at least 12 meters high - which should fit perfectly with this music. not sure what you mean by mannered, branwell, in a way each piece of art is mannered as it is not natural but that is a red herring. immersive on the other hand suits well, it is very difficult to escape this music when it is played, not that i'd want to...