Altered Zones

Laurel Halo says:
L.A.-based composer Julia Holter creates incredible music full of collaged emotion and persistent decay. She's currently singing and playing the keys with Nite Jewel, and while Julia's music has a similar gauzy feel, her sense of rhythm and pace are free and organic. Metric restriction seems deliberately absent, replaced by invisible LFOs of intensity and exploration. "The Falling Age" is an amazing track. It's nine minutes of ambient-classical doom, commencing with low, detuned drones and an opening melodic narration, then swelling into longing waves of live chamber instrumentation. It's just pure orchestral anguish, minute after minute of breathing suspension and release. Eventually, the track decays, returning to the drone cocoon from which it began. The combination of artificial/actual, of synth moments with live orchestration (the middle section is actually a piece for 13 instruments that Holter wrote at CalArts) is disconcerting and gorgeous, revealing undercurrents of black metal ambience. I'm happy that WCBN, where I first met Julia, has inspired so many contemporary musicians, including Jib Kidder, Kohwi, and COBO.

MP3: Julia Holter: "The Falling Age"

Tragedy is out on Leaving Records in early 2011