As Always, Julia

Normally, one thinks of pearl-divers as of people from the Southern seas, typically the Tropical ones. Certainly, the ice-cold waters of the polar and subpolar seas are not those most immediately associated with pearl-fishing. And, indeed, the “pearls from the Northern Seas” represented in this Da Vinci Classics album are intangible and invisible, as they represent the domain of the audible.

On The Next Door Julia Hülsmann returns with the quartet from 2019’s Not Far From Here, and presents her unique pianistic voice in a varied programme of almost exclusively original music, composed by herself and her colleagues – tenor saxophonist Uli Kempendorff, Marc Muellbauer on double bass and drummer Heinrich Köbberling. A deep respect for the jazz tradition, as cultivated in the post-bop and modal jazz of the 60s, permeates this session and, with the quartet’s modern twist, sets the stage for highly expressive soloing and profound interplay.

Julia Holter - Have You In My Wilderness (2015) {Domino WIGCD341}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 315 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 107 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 54 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2015 Domino Recording | WIGCD341
Indie / Chamber Pop / Indie Pop / Indie Electronic / Dream Pop

After drawing on Greek tragedies and MGM musicals for her earlier albums, it would be hard for Julia Holter to find loftier sources of inspiration. On Have You in My Wilderness, she recasts her ambition to a more intimate scale: where her previous album Loud City Song had the heft of a novel, these songs play like a collection of short stories. Indeed, Holter remains as literary as ever; her influences include Christopher Isherwood's The Berlin Stories – with Holter taking a sultry, Sally Bowles-meets-Nico turn on the torchy "How Long" – as well as the novella Chance Acquaintances by Colette, whose Gigi begat Loud City Song.

Julia Holter - Aviary (2018) {Domino WIGCD417} (Complete Artwork)
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 507 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 215 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 29 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2018 Domino Recording | WIGCD417
Indie / Chamber Pop / Indie Pop / Indie Electronic / Dream Pop

During the second half of the 2010s, much of Julia Holter's music revolved around different kinds of confinement that ranged from her soundtrack work to the verse-chorus-verse forms of Have You in My Wilderness. Aviary feels like the natural and opposite reaction to all this structure; at a generous 90 minutes long, it gives her plenty of room to express herself as a composer, songwriter, experimental artist, and indie musician. Inspired in part by a quote from Lebanese-American writer Etel Adnan ("I found myself in an aviary full of shrieking birds"), Holter's sixth album reflects and responds to the feeling of sensory overload that dominated the late 2010s.

Recent years brought about for Julia Holter an existential focus on human connection, amid the staggering change that came with the death of loved ones (including her young nephew, to whom the album is dedicated) and the birth of her daughter. On Something in the Room She Moves, Holter vividly processes the complexity, gravity, and awe of this confluence of experience. She calls the music “sensual,” “flowing,” and “nocturnal”–a testament to how love, with all of its challenges, “reroutes neural pathways.” The cover art by Holter’s childhood friend, artist Christina Quarles, highlights the multiplicity of intimate connection: are the figures embracing or in battle?

Vanish is Julia Reidy’s yearning, fat debut for Editions Mego. Since 2019, Julia’s bubbling 12-string guitar work - sighing streams of crystal plucks drawn closer or echoing on - has moored a tactile, ever-lusher sound. On ‘Guitar’, the Australian, Berlin-based musician melts down sharp synths; electric fuzz and flex; uncanny found sounds; and autotuned voice and harmonica in a heady, overpowering potion.