“Something In The Room She Moves” (Domino/Music As Usual, 24), sixth album by the North American composer Julia Holtershows her like a fish in water in her own world, a dreamlike space in which ambient electronics, elegant avant-garde pop and surrealism pose a warm sensory encounter with the listener.
No matter how hard one tries, there is no way to pigeonhole the music of Julia Holter. Her restless spirit of searching shines in this new double album conceived in the pandemic era in which the composer explores the idea of the corporeal. We met her physically – thank goodness – in a hotel in Madrid. She seems delighted to be able to talk about what she does in person. Now she is preparing to present her new delicate songs live with the same group that accompanied her on her previous tour, which promises to be “super fun.”
You say that with this album you wanted to explore the idea of the “body.” What was your starting point?
When I make music often the sound comes first. I don’t usually have concepts before starting to compose. What emerged this time was to focus on the body, on the physical. It may have had to do circumstantially with being more present, due to the situations I experienced, such as being pregnant. Furthermore, it was the time of Covid, I started composing the songs in 2020. It was a moment… (one thinks) fragile for people in general. With the Covid issue, the body was very present with the lungs, breathing, and not getting close to other people. Distance yourself from other bodies.
“I’m not very organized, and I don’t like having simple structures in my songs.”
It was very strange.
It was very strange, and crazy how difficult it was to create something. If someone had told me before the pandemic, years ago, that I would have more time than I normally have, distancing myself from others, I would have assumed that it would have been an opportunity to be more creative. However, it was not a creative moment at all, and many other people have told me so. There was so much death and everything was so depressing that I didn’t feel like making songs. It was too much for many people.
In other words, the pandemic did not inspire you in a direct way.
No. It just so happened that I was also pregnant, and I couldn’t help but let that be the topic. But more than themes, there are more patterns in my music. It was like focusing on the changing body, and how these situations change us. I don’t know, something like the sound of change.
As for your lyrics, I really like Jung’s idea that we Westerners have lost much of the connection with our unconscious part and dreams as a fundamental part of our existence. Do you trust that unconscious when making songs?
I haven’t read it, but I should… As I said, sound always comes first. It’s hard for me to write words. Rather the themes emerge gradually. The patterns and the texts. I usually start from improvisations with the keyboard, although not always. There are songs on the album like “Meyou” that start from a concept or a direction. But I do most of them sitting with my keyboard. I record different patterns, from there something emerges, later I go back to the audio file, discard what is bad, and develop what is good. Then there is the whole recording part, which is another process.
Do you like to record?
I love everything: composing music, producing it, recording it…
Do you record in your own studio?
I didn’t record as much at home as I did on “Aviary” (Domino, 18). I realized that recording vocals at home is difficult. And even more so now in my domestic situation, with a girl. It was a strange situation because I had to record the vocals and I got Covid. I wasn’t very sick, but I lost my voice. I had been working on the lyrics for about two years and I hadn’t finished them… it was time to mix and I still didn’t have the lyrics, so I did them in the studio where we were mixing, crazy. But I ended up loving recording vocals in a studio, which I don’t usually do. And I also finished the lyrics very quickly. I realized how strange writing can be: you can spend two years thinking about it and in the end it all comes to you. You think you’re not working on it, but your brain is. And you get to the place where everything fits.
I have read that the title of the album (and the song) has to do with a song by The Beatles (“Something”) and a subconscious association, of automatic writing.
Yes (laughs). I did the improvisation that would end up being that song, and when I was saving the file I saved it with that name for some reason. Time passed and I liked it a lot. I don’t know where that title came from initially, I have no idea. But it turns out that later I became very involved with The Beatles, because I sang songs to my daughter. And we saw the documentary “Get Back” and she captivated me, because she’s so cool. I love Yoko Ono’s role and her relationship with John, I don’t know, I love everything. I really liked seeing the creative process, the collaborations, and how they let themselves be carried away by her imagination. But it’s not that my album is about The Beatles…
“I don’t usually have concepts before I start composing”
Clear. And the song? It’s great. I think it is the longest of all.
I think it’s one of the first ones I composed for this album. It has a connection with me, because it is related to the song “Feel You”, which came out in 2015. It has a similar feeling, a harmonic progression like…snaking. I think it’s more sinuous than “Feel You” and more optimistic. I’m looking for a word to define it…It’s the only song on the album that’s kind of longing. But not in a romantic sense. I liked the progression and listening to it over and over again helped me make the voice. The chords inspired me…and the song itself is about a surreal domestic thing. I think it has a feminist undertone, but not in an explicit way. I think people will be able to catch it, I don’t know (laughs). It’s surreal.
It is true that the songs have this somewhat “aquatic” quality in terms of tempo, which I relate to jazz. Do you try not to be constrained by standard tempos and structures?
I think it’s me, I’m not very organized, and I don’t like having simple structures. I do what I want without thinking much about the tempos. Sometimes when I play the beats I think about it a little bit, but not too much. I see it more as a feeling that I later transcribe. “Talking To The Whisper” we couldn’t all record it together. I made a demo and then we transcribed it in the studio. I don’t save every small detail, but many times I do.
“Oceans” is basically made with synthesizers, but it sounds very warm, which is not so common when you use only those types of instruments.
The first thing I usually record are the basic bass parts. I make them at home with my Nord. Basically, because I don’t have much equipment. I turn with the Nord because it is a very good instrument, it has many things. I usually record things with it and listen to what I do over and over again – although I don’t do this with all my music. And in the difficult pandemic times I spent a lot of time playing it. I like it because I grew up hearing these warm synths. It has a bit of an ambient feeling, but I don’t like things to be too ambient either. It gives you a sensation like breathing and feeling. And then I added the parts from the Yamaha CS-60, which is one of my favorite synthesizers and is in the studio. It’s a very crazy classic synth. The one from “Blade Runner”.
“A lot of idiosyncratic music comes from Southern California”
Sure, there’s quite a bit of Vangelis there.
Completely! With the previous album I got into it a lot… and in this one there is a lot of that instrument (the Nord). I love the bass with a bit of trombone, it’s very “Blade Runner”. I don’t play it very well, but I love messing with it. Devin (Hoof) and Chris (Speed) played over what he had done. I don’t think they’d even heard it before.
The cover, by the way, by your friend Christina Quarles, is very special. It’s like expressionist, with those strong colors, and quite ambiguous.
Yes, Christina’s work is amazing. He exhibits all over the world. And I know him very well from drawing with her when we were girls. I was actually a little embarrassed to ask him, but it was heavenly. It occurred to me that it would be nice to have bodies, to capture the visceral sensuality of the album. Christina has always drawn figures. The painting has many layers of interpretation, and I find it very suggestive. For me it was perfect. The paint already existed and I was amazed when I found out I could use it. I love that it looks like there are two figures, but there could be more, and there could be something sexual or even violent or romantic between them…I love their complexity.
I have been to Los Angeles quite a bit, and for a European it is a very strange city. How does living there influence your music?
Yes, it is very spread out and has a lot of neighborhoods and space. One neighborhood has nothing to do with another. I think it gives me a lot of room for my imagination to run. A lot of idiosyncratic music comes from Southern California. It’s a bit generalizing, but it seems true to me that the music that is most consolidated in traditions is more associated with Western Europe and New York, but in California there are people doing different things. I think that’s still the case, unlike New York, where everything is more settled. It has changed a little, because everything is becoming homogenized, the cities are becoming very expensive and corporatized, but I would dare say that even now people do things different from LA. In Los Angeles it is like there is very little tradition in one sense or another . It’s still a bit of the wild west.