Julianna Barwick - Vow by Artur Smejalsja
Every year, there’s always something I miss. This year, it seems to have been Julianna Barwick’s transcendent The Magic Place.
From the record label: Asthmatic Kitty Records debut, The Magic Place, a nine-piece full-length album of magic and solace, bursting joy and healing tones. Julianna's mostly-a-capella music is built from her voice multi-tracked through a loop station. There's more backing instrumentation than on previous albums but it's the vocals—soaring high in reverb-drenched, wordless harmonies—that matter most here. It's the layered fragments and pieces that become an intricate pattern through technology; it's the sound of a rising thing, a big group harmony as a splash of sunlight through a car window, a sound that feels like hope and ascendance and patience and intimacy. (Pitchfork called her 2009 self-release, Florine, “bracingly intimate” as well as a runner-up for “album of the year,” giving it a glowing rating of 8.2. Her 2007 debut, Sanguine, is more of the same. Her sound, it appears, was born fully realized.)
Here’s a link to hear more full tracks from the album:
http://soundcloud.com/goldstarpr/sets/julianna-barwick-the-magic
It's the layered fragments and pieces that become an intricate pattern through technology; it's the sound of a rising thing, a big group harmony as a splash of sunlight through a car window, a sound that feels like hope and ascendance and patience and intimacy.
ReplyDeleteI like that description. The music is pretty (I mean that sincerely, I'm not damning the music with faint praise), but I don't quite have the patience for it. I need more percussion. More cowbell. This music seems like an acquired taste. The art itself cannot be blamed for my impatience with it.
I feel a bit the same way. It's great for having something on while reading or going to sleep. And, for me, that's important. I have kids, it's a noisy place I live in.
ReplyDeleteI had the same reaction. I remember it feeling like it was Freak Folk that was born in a cathedral.
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