Julia Holter: Have You in My Winderness
“I’m blinded by the possibility,” Julia Holter sings on “Feel You,” her sweetly mysterious purr swooning amid harpsichord plucks, upright bass grooves and suspended strings. That lyric sums up the experience of her fourth LP, Have You in My Wilderness—10 alluring songs that feel untethered to the Earth. Working with producer/engineer Cole Greif-Neill (Beck, Ariel Pink) and a crew of ace Los Angeles session players, Holter carves out thickets of ambient-jazz rhythms, modern classical orchestrations and art-pop piano balladry, alternating between savory croon (“Silhouette”) and spooky monotone (“Vasquez”). The abstraction of her poetry—“I throw a box full of oranges, syrup seeping out/Searching for a season smell,” she chirps on “Night Song”—makes the material seem intimidating at arm’s length. But Holter has an uncanny knack for making the artful feel accessible, and vice-versa.