Julia Holter
Loud City Song

Californian goddaughter of Brian Eno and Nico, raised by Laurie Anderson and enamored at a young age with John Cage (whom she would later betray for Steve Reich and Terry Riley). In her teenage years, she switched sides and fell in love with Meredith Monk (whom she would later betray for Julee Cruise and Enya). A real mess, just like the one depicted on the cover of her first amateur album "Tragedy" - a pre-Alexandrian "Guernica" ("Miletus"?).

Here, in her third work (the second being the still amateur "Ekstasis"), the first in a recording studio, all her past (and aforementioned) artistic liaisons find reason to exist in complex and functional tracks with their stylistic eclecticism, supported by a classy concept, inherently dated but "updated" by the artist in the now archetypal uchronia of the "metropolis as a state of mind": "Gigi" [1945], a novel by the French actress/writer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, known as "Colette". The metropolitan inspirations unfold throughout the album. A minimalist avant-garde, in camouflage, crosses the various climaxes of the work, occasionally accompanied by full ambient arrangements, almost chamber-like ["World", the cover of Barbara Lewis's "Hello Stranger" and the interludes "Maxim's" I and II], and acoustic ["In the Green Wild", "He's Running Through My Heart"], which seek to sweeten the otherwise synthetic and austere setup that without them the tracks in question would surely have.

The concluding and atmospheric "This Is a True Heart" and "City Appearing" appear as the most complete, as they still present all the aspects of Holter's style diaphanously - ranging from acoustic to minimal ambient, from chamber-like to ethereal pop - without mannered compromises, not yet fully tempered by studio production. Pretentiousness? Ambition, rather, for an artist who redefines what it means, in the second decade of the third millennium, to be an avant-garde singer-songwriter. Because someone like her who can communicate "integrally" to the masses, while maintaining high compositional standards and deep intellectual integrity, is truly a great artist. Is this the case with Julia Shammas Holter, daughter of a folkie father and an academic mother? Perhaps, considering also her young age and the mastery with which she presents her "persona" (mask) to the public - as well as the surprises she surely has in store for her already extremely interesting career.