Records of the Week

JULIANNA BARWICK’S OFFICIAL SITE

ASTHMATIC KITTY

I wish that we could take credit for a portion of Julianna Barwick rise from obscurity–we did feature her previous release, Florine, as a record of the week before it had caught the attention of anyone–but the best we can say is that we were briefly graced by her splendid musical ascent. Now, her debut full-length album is coming out on Asthmatic Kitty, a label she shares with indie heavyweights Sufjan Stevens, Fol Chen, My Brightest Diamond, and DM Stith. Barwick’s defining musical element, achieved by looping her own voice over gentle ambient waves, has evolved drastically since Florine–she now employs incantatory percussive elements, more complex vocal patterns, and a number of fleeting auxiliary instruments. “Bob in Your Gait” and title track “The Magic Place” are all whimsy and play, whereas “Prizewinning” has an existential urgency. With The Magic Place, Barwick emerges as an artistic force of nature: primal in her vocal elegance, unpredictable in her compositional sophistication, and sublime in her fragile humanity.