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Julia Holter — Aviary (Oct. 26, 2018)

                             Julia Holter — Aviary (Oct. 26, 2018)Julia Holter — Aviary (Oct. 26, 2018)✹    Bez zábran, soustředěná a řemeslně elegantní, yes yes..., to je majestátní provedení díla! Julia nikdy předtím nezněla vitálněji. Julia Holter patří po boku Kacey Johansing do TOP 20 v hledáčku Tais Awards. Její styl práce připomíná moderní symfonii, kombinující videa, hudbu a literaturu, zájem o starověkou řeckou filozofii a filmy od Alaina Resnaise. Hudba nás pozve do jedinečné poetické atmosféry s razítkem melodických zvláštnůstek Laurie Anderson. Po studiu na CalArts po boku Ariela Pinka a Nite Jewel dělala terénní nahrávky a mixtapes všeho druhu. Skládá hudbu s reflexí DIY, její éterické melodie přesto odhalí klasické vzdělání.
✹    The album’s length feels like a rebuke of attention spans shortened by constant screen time, and demands listeners engage at a slower, more receptive pace. Fortunately, Aviary is some of Holter’s most dazzling, mercurial music, and the liberation she felt making it is audible at every turn. She begins the album with some of its boldest tracks, which use barely controlled chaos as skillfully as she employs careful arrangements.
Location: Los Angeles, California
Album release: October 26, 2018
Record Label: Domino
Duration:     89:58
Tracks:
01. Turn the Light on   4:17
02. Whether   2:59
03. Chaitius   8:10
04. Voce Simul   6:35
05. Everyday Is an Emergency   7:45
06. Another Dream   6:08
07. I Shall Love 2   5:19
08. Underneath the Moon   6:50
09. Colligere   6:11
10. In Gardens’ Muteness   6:37
11. I Would Rather See   4:52
12. Les Jeux to You   6:19
13. Words I Heard   6:39
14. I Shall Love 1   5:10
15. Why Sad Song   6:07
✹    „Amidst all the internal and external babble we experience daily, it’s hard to find one’s foundation,“ says Holter. „I think this album is reflecting that feeling of cacophony and how one responds to it as a person — how one behaves, how one looks for love, for solace.  Maybe it’s a matter of listening to and gathering the seeming madness, of forming something out of it and envisioning a future.“ Aviary is an epic journey through what Julia Holter describes as „the cacophony of the mind in a melting world.“ It’s the Los Angeles composer’s most breathtakingly expansive album yet, full of startling turns and dazzling instrumental arrangements.
✹    The follow~up to her critically acclaimed 2015 record, Have You in My Wilderness, it takes as its starting point a line from a 2009 short story by writer Etel Adnan: „I found myself in an aviary full of shrieking birds.“ It’s a scenario that sounds straight out of a horror movie, but it’s also a pretty good metaphor for life in 2018, with its endless onslaught of political scandals, freakish natural disasters, and voices shouting their desires and resentments into the void
✹    Aviary, executive produced by Cole MGN and produced by Holter and Kenny Gilmore, combines Holter’s slyly theatrical vocals and Blade Runner~nspired synth work with an enveloping palette of strings and percussion that reveals itself, and the boundless scope of her vision, over the course of fifteen songs.
Holter was joined by:
✹    Corey Fogel (percussion),
✹    Devin Hoff (bass),
✹    Dina Maccabee (violin, viola, vocals),
✹    Sarah Belle Reid (trumpet),
✹    Andrew Tholl (violin), and
✹    Tashi Wada (synth, bagpipes).
Review
Rachel Aroesti, Fri 26 Oct 2018 10.51 BST / Score: ✹✹✹✹
✹    To say that Julia Holter’s fifth album is dense and difficult is an understatement — in an ideal world, Aviary would come with its own dedicated edition of York Notes. Laden with literary references, Latin text and lyrics that strain under the weight of impressionistic meaning, it’s a record that is difficult to parse but easy to admire. On her previous album, 2015’s Have You In My Wilderness, Holter proved she could squish her avant~garde sensibilities into soaring pop songs. This time, the Los Angeles~based musician has loosened the reins, creating a collection of tracks that are rich, expansive and only occasionally maddeningly obtuse.
✹    Holter has said that it was her intention to use Aviary to meditate on the current chaos of the world, something that’s clear from the off — opener Turn the Light On resembles The Scream in musical form. Over the crash and screech of a malfunctioning orchestra, Holter wails flatly, her voice alternating between a foghorn bellow and a sheep~like vibrato. There is a track called Everyday Is an Emergency, which begins with amusingly dissonant bagpipes that morph into the sound of an alarm, and numerous allusions to war — both ancient and contemporary. Despite its concern with modern malaise, Aviary sonically harks back to the medieval via chants, references to Occitan troubadour songs and brass fanfares — but it’s also in possession of a more romantic kind of nostalgia, thanks to a heavenly string section that cushions the more abrasive sounds.
✹    The majority of Aviary is designed to be mused on mindfully, but there are a handful of more immediate moments. The spellbindingly brilliant I Shall Love 2 builds gradually into a chamber~pop ballad, whose droning quality and sense of childlike disarray recalls the Velvet Underground. Whether is a jaunty piece of electrified post~punk, while Les Jeux to You features jolly staccato singing in broken English that resembles odd Euro~pop from the 1970s. Holter doesn’t drop quite enough of these joyful crumbs to cajole the listener through the entirety of this 90~minute epic — yet there remains a glut of beauty and braininess in store for those willing to stick around. ✹    https://www.theguardian.com/
Label: http://www.dominorecordco.com/
Bandcamp: https://juliaholter.bandcamp.com/album/aviary
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Julia Holter — Aviary (Oct. 26, 2018)

ALBUM COVERS XI.