Earlier this year, Sasha Spielberg aka Buzzy Lee shared her intimate, diaristic album Spoiled Love, which she crafted in collaboration with longtime friend Nicolas Jaar. A few days ago, the Los Angeles musician posted her Tiny Desk (Home) Concert performance, which features three tracks from the LP, as well as a rendition of her 2018 debut single “Coolhand.” The session was recorded in her childhood bathroom, which her parents decorated with images of fairytales. As good news never comes alone, she’s also unveiled today a Julia Holter ethereal remix of “Strange Town.”

In a few days, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Julia Holter will unveil her fifth album, “Aviary”, that she describes as “the cacophony of the mind in a melting world” and that was inspired by a quote from Lebanese-American writer Etel Adnan‘s “Journey to Mount Tamalpais”:

[su_quote]Tall trees of so many kinds, from redwoods to manzanitas, oaks, madrones, maples and elms, plants and bushes, flowers and seeds, acorns and grass, they all are the last chance of the earth and they all make a thick and permanent coat, a cover, a bath of perfume, a touch of healing, a royal procession, music and fanfare, they rise and talk to Tamalpais, and sing lullabies and songs of love.[/su_quote]

Following up on “I Shall Love 2“, she has just shared a brand new song “Words I Heard”. The director of the accompanying video Dicky Bahto, a frequent collaborator of Julia Holter who also signed the visuals for the first single, stated:

[su_quote]When Julia told me that the title of her album was inspired by Etel Adnan, one of my favorite writers, I felt that I had to make a film for one of the songs on Mount Tamalpais, a recurring subject in both Adnan’s visual art and her writing. I filmed on a few hikes down the Dipsea trail, and in the last section of the song combine this with footage made during the studio sessions of the album.[/su_quote]

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Even if Julia Holter was not inactive these last months, her last proper solo album “Have You In My Wilderness” was released back in 2015. The Los Angeles-based experimental art pop artist is now back with a new video which also announces the release of her fifth album.

“Aviary” is named after a 2009 short story by Etel Adnan and she describes it as “the cacophony of the mind in a melting world.” About this new project, she also added:

[su_quote]Amidst all the internal and external babble we experience daily, it’s hard to find one’s foundation. I think this album is reflecting that feeling of cacophony and how one responds to it as a person – how one behaves, how one looks for love, for solace. Maybe it’s a matter of listening to and gathering the seeming madness, of forming something out of it and envisioning a future. [/su_quote]

You can already discover the first single “I Shall Love 2” and watch the Dicky Bahto-directed video below.

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Julia Holter – “Aviary” tracklist:

01 “Turn The Light On”

02 “Whether”

03 “Chaitius”

04 “Voce Simul”

05 “Everyday Is An Emergency”

06 “Another Dream”

07 “I Shall Love 2″

08 “Underneath The Moon”

09 “Colligere”

10 “In Gardens’ Muteness”

11 “I Would Rather See”

12 “Les Jeux To You”

13 “Words I Heard”

14 “I Shall Love 1″

15 “Why Sad Song”

Julia Lucille, who moved to Austin, Texas, in 2012 (after her music studies in Portland), chose to symbolically highlight the mythology surrounding Zeus and Demeter’s daughter Persephone, and her journey toward darkness and ultimately rebirth. The Goddess of the underworld, springtime, flowers and vegetation, is also a character full of feminity, and we can hear that too in the music of Julia. For instance, while recording this new album, the artist decided to reject guitar parts and tones that sounded too aggressive or masculine in favor of balance and subtlety. The final rendition is particularly elegant and subtle and reminds us of another artist we love here at HighClouds: Julia Holter.

Her last video for “Darkening” was shot, directed, and edited by Jordan Moser in Wimberley, Texas, and is a beautiful portray of Nature and its contradictory elements.

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“Darkening”, as well as the previously-released singles “I Don’t Think I Can” and “Eternally“, is featured on “Chthonic” out now via Keeled Scales.

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Connect with Julia Lucille by visiting her website or via Facebook, Instagram, Bandcamp and Twitter.

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Of course, the video features boots and a love story between a cowboy and a cowgirl.

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The track is one of the highlights of LA-based artist’s last album “Have You In My Wilderness” that is available now via Domino Records. The single, that follows “Feel You”, “Sea Calls Me Home” and “Silhouette“, will be released on February 26th to coincide her upcoming UK and European tour. She will notably be in concert in Brussels, with Julianna Barwick, during the #Nuits2016 festival of Le Botanique. Get your ticket here.

By the way, the track is currently featured in the HighClouds30 at the 9th position, for a second row in a week. Check on the full charts here.

[su_dropcap style=”simple”]I[/su_dropcap]n discreet ways and with a lot of refinement, Julia Holter keeps on promoting her last album “Have You In My Wilderness”, that was released in 2015 via Domino Records. Her label recently published on YouTube the official audio of another track of her album: “Everytime Boots”. We really hope this excellent one will also get the single treatment.

After the excellent “Feel You”, “See Calls Me Home” and “Silhouette” (2 of these tracks made it in our Top Songs of 2015), it was difficult to release something with such a quality. But nothing is impossible for the American artist and “Everytime Boots” is one of the highlights of the album, a secret weapon that is also the song with the highest tempo of the album. Indeed, this is a special song on the album with a certain country and music-hall spirit.

“Oh, everytime I do put on boots
I feel the charge as a good thing to run to
But I only hear the rattlesnake winds
They blow dust and I’m helpless to fight back”

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Now, let’s just hope there will be a video.

The video, which was directed by Rick Bahto, is a series of moments where Holter is playing with a lamp and with colorful shadows, wandering in a flowered place, walking in a house and writing some words on a small notebook. The song is about two sisters who are both waiting for the same lover. I don’t know if you think the same but there is something of Kate Bush in this song and this video.

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Yesterday, the young artist from Los Angeles (she is 30), was playing in Brussels and we were there, like 3 years before. She was both mysterious and funny: it must be noted that the live session was a bit “rock & roll” as some unexpected things happened and Julia Holter responded with humor and phlegm. She played a balanced mix of old tracks, like the excellent “Marienbad” or “In The Green Wild”, and new material from her last album. She also sang a cover of Karen Dalton‘s “My Love, My Love” during the encore.

You can still get Julia Holter‘s new album here or catch her on tour till late February.