What Barwick is singing is completely indistinct. Her voice is an instrument that is layered and allowed to reverberate to create something truly ethereal that swells and rolls. It's quite dizzying.
Barwick is an american musician raised in Louisiana who uses her voice layers and loops. Beginning most of the songs in the album using a single refrain and building from there, adding the occasional piano or other softly played instrument. The effect is to create something sparse, haunting and intensely magical. It's all sounds bit New Age doesn't it but someone into this mix there is a distinctly Southern folk or Bluegrass echo. Perhaps it's that Barwick's musical background was in a rural church choir. There are moments where it reminds me of T-Bone Burnett's brilliant O Brother soundtrack.
Described elsewhere as a mixture of the Cocteau Twins and an ambient Brian Eno record THE MAGIC PLACE but the act it reminds me most of Sigur Ros, though without the tendency towards the euphoric.
THE MAGIC PLACE is exactly that and I don't think I've heard anything like it before. Quite amazing.
Julianna Barwick is playing Cafe OTO in Dalston, London, on 22nd November if you fancy hearing her in person.
WHITE FLAG
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