Julia Holter - Aviary
Julia Holter's fifth studio album emerges as a work of epic proportion and avant-garde genius. With fifteen tracks, and a running close on ninety minutes, Holter still uses the time prudently to explore themes of chaos and order, and madness and love. She juxta-positions ideas within individual pieces, even turning the running order on its head. Turn The Light On, with its soaring vocal refrain, builds to a euphoric conclusion that would serve as a dramatic finale, yet Holter makes it her opening track. The enigmatic I Shall Love 2, already released complete with video by Dicky Bahto, leapfrogs six tracks ahead of its chronological partner I Shall Love 1.
Yet this seemingly haphazard patchwork of sonic landscapes, theatrical vocals, strings, percussion, bagpipes and synths is serendipitously stitched together to produce a musical blanket of unfettered hypnotic beauty, a work that simply becomes more gorgeous with every listen. Holter's style is not easy to categorise - think of Lori Anderson, John Cage and Robert Ashley, perhaps with a sprinkling of Stereolab or Joanna Newsome, and you might begin to get the idea. Incorporate into the weft a thread of Blade Runner soundtrack, and a primal swirl of Pink Floyd psyche, and you arrive at an album that preaches majestically of love and releases the avian spirit within. A masterpiece.
