The composer-producer’s latest album continues her quest to distil feelings we never knew had a name. Kate Putttick learns more
Julia Holter’s work is about synthesis in its purest form. The California-based musician is gifted as a lyricist and musical worldbuilder, weaving in literary themes, concepts and reference points, from Greek mythology (Ekstasis) through to belle epoque Paris and the film Gigi (Loud City Song). But she most notably of all shines when it comes to all things phatic and unspoken in both her vocals and composition. Holter’s true genius comes from a process that she describes as akin to “drawing feelings”. The Domino Records artist knows a thing or two about conjuring atmosphere – in both her grandiose performances and the technical skills to translate that to record, as lead producer on most of her discography.
Despite being the child of a folk musician and an academic, her childhood musical turning points will be familiar to many – the Beatles and film music. Educated at the “casual and cool” CalArts as well as the more academically rigid University of Michigan, Holter experienced musical formation in an array of formats. Yet somehow, the kind of virtuosity of expression that Holter possesses is anything but studied. And on the way up her time spent with bedroom synthpop kingpins (Ariel Pink) and eccentric autodidacts (Linda Perhacs, whose backstory deserves its own page) certainly nourished her capacity to embrace the jagged edges of musicianship too.
Moreover, and something that Future Music readers will truly empathise with, is the significance of her discovery of self-production. As she told Financial Times in 2019, “I started recording, and that freed me up a lot. That’s where a turning point happened where I had confidence. I didn’t have to communicate to anyone and I realised that I enjoy expressing myself performance-wise, which I never was aware of. I thought I was an introvert. But I got to express more poetically and freely by recording, and I loved the process.”
Holter’s discography and its relationship with the 3-minute song structure is complicated. Have You In My Wilderness turbo-charged her Spotify listening numbers in some respects, before follow-up Aviary took a more avant garde reprise. But the constant of both is, without doubt, that dedication to synthesis and sonic distillation of passing emotion. So while the explanation for the title of new album Something in the Room She Moves – that the flipping of words in the title when playing around in Logic simply appealed to her sense of humour – might be disappointing to Beatlephiles, it’s also completely on brand.
When creating Evening Mood, she deliberately set out to recreate in musical form the feeling of oxytocin – the hormone associated with being in love in all of its forms. If she hadn’t very much succeeded in d
