The creative boundaries of Julia Holter continue to hold no limits as she expands chamber pop into new creative heights.
Gorgeous, layered production with ethereal vocal performances are trademarks of a Julia Holter album. She first won us over with her amazing 2015 effort, ‘Have You In My Wilderness'. Working its way into our favourites with its enthralling songwriting and glistening ballads ala ‘Feel You’ and ‘Lucidity’.
Her live session interpretations of her intimate and underrated, ‘In The Same Room’ show the depth and brilliance of the material on HYIMW. But it segues into her opus that is, ‘Aviary’.
The double LP pushes bilingual love songs across spacious instrumental in full dynamic range, and it sounds even better in practice. Almost noise at one point, and then circling drone and back into chamber pop roots and bringing it all back home with ambient, this is Grouper meets Natalia Lafourcade meets Swans.
‘I Shall Luv 2’ remains our favourite, but other gems include the eight-minute, ‘Chaitius’ and ‘In Gardens Muteness’. And the closer ‘Why Sad Song’ marks the perfect closer to 90 minutes of creative, passionate genius.
Highly recommended to all, and brilliant on all fronts.
'Aviary' is available in the Store now.