Aviary
Aviary is an epic journey through what Julia Holter describes as “the cacophony of the mind in a melting world.” Out on October 26th via Domino, 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-inspired 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).
The Los Angeles musician’s fifth studio album is the most joyous, daring realization of her experimental tendencies yet: a sprawling, 90-minute search for meaning in a dehumanizing age.
Expansive and complex, this is a record that rewards audience investment
During the second half of the 2010s, much of Julia Holter's music revolved around different kinds of confinement that ranged from her soundtrack work to the verse-chorus-verse forms of Have You in My Wilderness.
A challenging but rewarding album, Aviary continually grasps towards communication, exulting in common humanity amid societal ruptures.
Julia Holter isn't prone to small, easy statements. Baroque and oblique in equal measure, her music teases out obscure details and ineffable...
In naming Aviary, her studio follow-up to 2015's Have You in My Wilderness, Julia Holter took inspiration from a line from a 2009 short story by Lebanese-American poet and essayist Etel Adnan: "I found myself in an aviary full of shrieking birds."
Upon first hearing 2015’s critically adored ‘Have You in My Wilderness’, it felt as though some of Julia Holter’s sharp edges had
Just you wait for the eight-minute improvised bagpipe interlude on Julia Holter's 'Aviary' an album that's purely delivered and unapologetically acrid.
Julia Holter first appeared in the singer-songwriter scene in 2011 with her debut record Tragedy.
Julia Holter gets experimental and wondrous but not always totally coherent in our review of the long and mesmerizing record 'Aviary'
Holter’s album is complex, with bits of avant-garde experimentation, but it’s always appealing