Julianna Barwick - The Magic Place (2011, Asthmatic Kitty)

RIYL = Eluvium, Grouper, Sigur Ros

Julianna Barwick, after releasing two indescribably gorgeous EPs, has finally graced us with this, her first full length album. According to Barwick, The Magic Place is named after a cavernous Louisiana farm tree from her youth, one whose twisting trunk and branches created a series of hollows – or rooms – with which you could enter and lay about in. On her debut (feels odd to say in 2011), Barwick manages the same effect with her gauzy, multi-layered vocals, wrapping them around each other in a swaddling quilt of sound – something you can enter and lay about in. It’s paralyzing in a way, it’s so beautiful. Of course, if you’ve listened to Barwick’s music in the past, this is no surprise. Her music is the kind that makes you want to stop everything else you’re doing (blinking, breathing) and just soak in the pure magnificence of tone that she’s created. Her voice is as close to angelic as I can imagine the human voice sounding. And The Magic Place does exactly what you wanted her previous two EPs to do – it extends. May not be possible to create something prettier than this.

Julianna Barwick - The Magic Place

Julianna Barwick

Julianna Barwick
Sanguine
(2007, Self Released)
8.5/10

Subject to some recent blog hype, Julianna Barwick’s music is like the love child of Panda Bear’s Person Pitch and Grouper’s Cover the Windows and the Walls. Looping her choral vocals into gorgeous pastoral hymns, Barwick has created thirteen varied slices of heaven with her debut Sanguine. The tonal quality of the tracks is otherworldly in its beauty, reimagining blue skies and clouds. The one draw back to Sanguine is its length. At just 25 minutes, many of the songs sound like sound samples that you would hear on a website advertising a full length album. With a little bit more room to develop Sanguine could have reached the top spot this year. Even so, the tracks are so robust with their own miniature loveliness that it is hard to stay disgruntled for long. With Sanguine Barwick has bestowed the world with a wonderful gift that will hopefully prove to be the beginning of a series of work that will continue to grow and progress.

-Mr. Thistle

Julianna Barwick - "Dancing With Friends"