Julia Holter

Julia Holter - Celebration (2010) {Engraved Glass egp06}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 269 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 152 Mb
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© 2010 Engraved Glass | egp06
Indie / Indie Pop / Non-Music / Field Recording

Highly limited edition (50 copies) release by Julia Holter. Featuring field recordings, song & a lengthy extract from Julia's interpretation of a score by Michael Pisaro. Very tired and somewhat stressed today after a difficult day. i have been listening to music tonight through the haze of a cloudy headache, and I’m surprising myself by settling down to write about it now… If the rest of this post is even more vague than usual please understand why!

Julia Holter - Aviary (2018) {Domino WIGCD417} (Complete Artwork)
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 507 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 215 Mb
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© 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?

Julia Holter - Loud City Song (2013) {Domino Recording WIG306CD}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 278 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 107 Mb
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© 2013 Domino Recording | WIG306CD
Indie / Chamber Pop / Indie Pop / Indie Electronic / Dream Pop

"There's a flavor to the sound of walking no one ever noticed before," Julia Holter sings at one point on her third album, Loud City Song, and if anyone could notice that, it would be her. Holter excels at bringing emotional depth to her high-concept music and never more so than on this set of songs, which feels as ambitious as Tragedy and Ekstasis, but more down to earth.

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.

Aviary is an epic journey through what Julia Holter describes as “the cacophony of the mind in a melting world.” Out on October 26th via Domino, it’s the Los Angeles composer’s most breathtakingly expansive album yet, full of startling turns and dazzling instrumental arrangements.