The Magic Place
Remastered reissue of the fateful debut album that firmed up Julianna Barwick’s elusive style of rafter-reaching choral plainchant in longform, layering up often wordless vocal expressions in steepled, beatific harmony and establishing her as an elemental force experimenting in space between the sacred and secular, comparable to Grouper or How To Dress Well, who were likewise on their way at the time of release...
"Originally released in 2011, Julianna Barwick's debut full length The Magic Place is a nine-piece full-length album of magic and solace, bursting joy, and healing tones. Julianna's mostly acapella music is built from her multi-tracked and looped voice, with backing instrumentation, but it's the vocals-soaring high in reverb-drenched, wordless harmonies-that matter most here. Layered fragments and pieces become an intricate pattern through electronics; it's the sound of a rising thing, a big group harmony as a splash of sunlight through a car window, a sound that feels like hope and ascendance and patience and intimacy.
Out of print for years, this 2024 version has been fully remastered by Heba Kadry, and is available through Julianna's Florid Recordings, the imprint she started in 2006 to self release her earliest recordings.
There's a very particular joy in listening to Barwick's music. Free of the constraints of narrative and traceable language, it's the same joy in giving yourself over to opera in a foreign language, of letting go of your pesky rational mind and allowing the feeling to come through in the voices and performance. The title track is next, a reverb-y beauty queen that soars to Promethean heights and builds its own kind of safe haven in the clouds. Even the gaps between songs are essential to the album's listening experience-a sigh between stories or silence-as-drone, each second important."
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2024 remaster by Heba Kadry.
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Remastered reissue of the fateful debut album that firmed up Julianna Barwick’s elusive style of rafter-reaching choral plainchant in longform, layering up often wordless vocal expressions in steepled, beatific harmony and establishing her as an elemental force experimenting in space between the sacred and secular, comparable to Grouper or How To Dress Well, who were likewise on their way at the time of release...
"Originally released in 2011, Julianna Barwick's debut full length The Magic Place is a nine-piece full-length album of magic and solace, bursting joy, and healing tones. Julianna's mostly acapella music is built from her multi-tracked and looped voice, with backing instrumentation, but it's the vocals-soaring high in reverb-drenched, wordless harmonies-that matter most here. Layered fragments and pieces become an intricate pattern through electronics; it's the sound of a rising thing, a big group harmony as a splash of sunlight through a car window, a sound that feels like hope and ascendance and patience and intimacy.
Out of print for years, this 2024 version has been fully remastered by Heba Kadry, and is available through Julianna's Florid Recordings, the imprint she started in 2006 to self release her earliest recordings.
There's a very particular joy in listening to Barwick's music. Free of the constraints of narrative and traceable language, it's the same joy in giving yourself over to opera in a foreign language, of letting go of your pesky rational mind and allowing the feeling to come through in the voices and performance. The title track is next, a reverb-y beauty queen that soars to Promethean heights and builds its own kind of safe haven in the clouds. Even the gaps between songs are essential to the album's listening experience-a sigh between stories or silence-as-drone, each second important."