Whatever. In Julia Holter’s sentences it is the intercalary that occurs most often. Practically every reasoning, or attempt to explain her art, lands in conclusion on that word. As a good American – and the artist, born in Milwaukee but a permanent resident of Los Angeles since the age of 6, is 100% American, although she can draw on cultural influences ranging from the European avant-garde to Greek tragedy, from poetics medieval to Arabic music – it may be a simple verbal tic, but perhaps it is also an indication of a way of approaching oneself and one’s creativity. As if to say that, despite the apparent conceptual weightiness, there is always a certain underlying playfulness, an airy following of the inspiration of the moment, and therefore it is not so important to always have to rationalize everything. Whatever.
On the new album Something in the Room She Moves – a title which, as she herself explained, has only a tangential connection with George Harrison’s song: it was a song she used to lullaby her newborn daughter, and when she had to give a title to the demo file of what would become the title track instinctively used that Beatlesque phrase, modifying it without any particular conceptual intent behind it – this implicit lightness, this abandonment to randomness and serendipity in constructing the songs can be clearly grasped even within sound and vocal structures that at first listening can seem complex or – to use a term that Holter rightly detests – cerebral. «My basic approach has always remained the same since I started playing and composing, and I did everything alone in my bedroom. A somewhat childish approach, if you like, from an enthusiastic amateur. Naturally over the years I have acquired technical skills, I am able to communicate the ideas I have in my head more precisely to the musicians who collaborate with me, but immediacy continues to be a fundamental component”.
The album ties together the thread of the discussion left hanging by Aviary, published in the now “remote” 2018, an ambitious work that presented itself as the culmination of Julia’s musical evolution and which many judged to be a sort of grandiose artistic statement. Something difficult to overcome. In Something in the Room She Moves wisely he doesn’t ask himself the problem, he goes around it and passes aside. The voice, the modus operandi, the sound frameworks in which improvisations with a jazzy or neo-classical flavor are mixed, vocal stratifications, synths, samples, field recordings and melodies that are often not even so imperceptible even if they have the consistency of a dream, are always recognisable. . But the thematic focus that recurs and links the songs together – the body, our reactions to it and vice versa, love in all its facets, fluidity understood not in a specifically sexual sense but as a constant state of mind and at at the same time as a liquid environment in which words and notes flow – gives the work its own peculiar physiognomy, which allows us to avoid comparisons with the rest of the Holterian corpus (to stay on topic).
«I don’t think this is a record I could have made five or ten years ago. Apart from the obvious topic of my evolution as a musician, there is everything that I have experienced in the last four-five years that has had a decisive influence. The birth of my daughter, the death of my 18 year old grandson, the pandemic. Something in the Room She Moves it is also a way to find my space amidst all these changes that have changed me and what is around me. Some happy, some tragic. The body, or rather us as human beings in the body, is certainly a central point. When I was pregnant, and after the birth of my daughter, I felt the signals that my body was sending me, I had to think about myself in a situation I didn’t know. It’s not just the interaction with our own bodies, but also with those of others. Physical contact. The presence of a body that wasn’t there before, my daughter, and the sudden absence of bodies, loved ones who die. And then think about what happened with the pandemic: our body which could be invaded by a foreign element, and those of others which could be its vectors. At the base, however, there is the constant search for a balance that can only pass through love.”
Besides the body, another concept that seems important and which connects to another title in Holter’s discography – In the Same Roomlive in the studio that reinterpreted the songs of Have You in My Wilderness of 2015 – is that of room, which in English has the double meaning of room and space. “Surely, room It’s a word that resonates particularly with me. After all, the need for space, understood precisely in the sense of physical space where for example to create music, could have been a problem after the birth of my daughter. The room is an environment that can evoke security and domestic warmth, but at the same time it can be an area in which we feel confined, sometimes even prisoners. In general, the environment in which my songs are born is very important, I always try to project myself into the environment and vice versa. The furniture, appliances, objects and material things that resonate in the music, even in a literal sense.”
In this regard, among the new songs there is one with a particularly evocative title: Matter. Even strangely contradictory, because it is actually one of the most ethereal, or “immaterial”, compositions on the album. «I don’t know if it’s an intentional contrast, in the end the piece developed that way and as always I notice certain connections or contradictions only at the end (laughs). The materiality of the world is something that really appeals to me, but I also wanted to investigate the concept at its root, which is why the title is in Latin. In etymologies we find the primary meaning of words, their relationship with reality. I’m fascinated by the assonance with motheras if matter were a great mother from which things are born…”.
And here we come to the question of femininity (or to quote Natalie Mering/Weyes Blood, an artist who insists a lot on this aspect, of the feminine) in music. An unavoidable topic, even more so in the contemporary cultural and political context, but which always risks resulting in trivializations and improper categorizations, especially when it is a man who raises it. How does Julia Holter stand on the topic? «I don’t know to what extent you can define me as a feminist, at least not in the sense of being an activist in concrete terms. These are issues that are obviously close to my heart, like any woman I have come up against sexism and patriarchal attitudes, but they are not issues that I address directly in the songs. The emergence of a new awareness, even a radical one, is fundamental but then everything passes through personal experience and is filtered by that. In mine there is being a woman, an artist, today also a mother, but there is also much more. I try to make that feminine element stand out in musical expression, as you said, above all in the sense of consonance and union between women. For example, it’s there on the new album Meyouin which I put together five women’s voices that modulate the same melody and repeat that word, which becomes a sort of mantra.”
Photo: Camille Blake
Speaking of Meyou, a reference quite far from Julia’s world comes to mind, and that is none other than David Crosby. In fact, the song recalls, in its stratification of voices that reach an almost incorporeal dimension, certain experiments of If I Could Only Remember My Name. «Do you know that I have never listened to that record? You’ve made me curious now (laughs). Actually an artist I had in mind is Robert Wyatt, especially albums like Rock Bottom and songs like Sea Song, which I love. In my way of composing, contrary to what you might think, I am very old fashioned. The samples, the rhythmic patterns, the found sounds are all things that come later: generally everything starts with me on the keyboards improvising for half an hour, revolving around a melody or a group of chords.”
Speak very slowly, Julia Holter. She gives the idea of weighing every word, as if she always finds herself faced with a choice to make that requires time and reflection. One wonders if this is also why – beyond the personal and collective events of the last five years, and a creative block fortunately overcome without too many traumas – it took you six years to follow up on Aviary. What is certain is that perfectionism, as well as the noble attitude of creating something only when you are truly inspired, are characteristics that go in the opposite direction compared to the assembly line needs of the contemporary music industry dominated by streaming and the need to always be in present in some way.
«It’s something with which I not only feel totally out of sync, but which I consider extremely dangerous for the future of artists. The mentality of people like Daniel Ek (the CEO of Spotify, ed) is disturbing, and streaming has imposed a toxic model that should be recalibrated in some way. Sustainable solutions must be found to protect musicians, this is the main aim of the United Musicians and Allied Workers trade union association in which I am involved. This obligation to be there, always there, to continuously produce, is the exact opposite of what the creative process should be. Artists must take their time, be informed by their experiences, metabolise them and try to project them into a personal language. But precisely: it takes time. Who needs people who release 100 songs a year? Who is it for? And then this obsession with public presence on social media. Creating content, uploading it online, immediately creating more, re-uploading it… we’ve reached the point of considering artists as content providers, and it’s frankly absurd.”
Time, including the space granted for the interview, is running out. And the time free from the commitments of an artist (and a mother) to be able to dedicate to new readings, visions, listening that are inspiration for future works, we imagine, is not a lot. But was there anything that caught Julia Holter’s attention after finishing the album? «I’ve actually become very slow at reading lately. A book that has absorbed me a lot in recent months is The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi. It also helped me clarify many aspects of the current situation, and to understand how complicit my country was and is in the killing of thousands of Palestinians. All this makes me feel enormous anger. As for listening, and perhaps there is a connection, in recent times I have been delving into Arabic music as much as I can. Especially with regards to vocality and singing.”
