The last time I saw Julia Holter play was at Laneway Festival a couple of years ago, and I’ve got to say, it was slightly tense. There were “technical difficulties’, and a thin crowd hung back for the whole set, sheltering beneath a tree from the midday summer sun.
The Northcote Social Club bandroom was much better suited to her band’ dynamic range. This time Holter was touring with five musicians – herself on keys, accompanied by cello, violin, saxophone and percussion – who were all part of the ensemble that recorded her most recent album, Loud City Song.
They were mostly CalArts grads, including Holter (she has a degree in composition), and the academic influence shows: her work draws on sources as esoteric and diverse as Euripides, Frank O’Hara, John Cage and Colette, and performances are a careful balance between precision and exploration.
Holter’ recent music is built largely around negative space. Live, that’s used to let the sound breathe and to upend expectations, the band moving from silence, to the muted scratching of violin strings, to the controlled cacophony of free jazz.
They opened with “In the Same Room’, a single from 2012 LP Ekstasis. This song best explains why Holter has, at times, been slotted in alongside last decade’ tide of bedroom pop producers. Recorded to computer with multiple tracks of programmed beats, swirling synths and multilayered vocals, “In the Same Room’ didn’ translate as effectively as the work from Loud City Song, which was arranged collaboratively in the studio.
The band took on other early tracks more successfully. Ekstasis opener “Marienbad’ was given a transcendent reworking, the vocal trills from the recording replaced with a saxophone fill, as was closer “Goddess Eyes I’, with the drummer taking on vocoder duties.
The show’ main draw was the chemistry between the players, exceptional musicians who interpreted Holter’ compositions – as otherworldly as Alice Coltrane and as surprising as Joni Mitchell – with integrity and nuance.
Holter’ own performance was captivating, but insular. In interviews she’ spoken about the need to channel a character when playing live – to escape self-consciousness as much as to do justice to the songs. That idea was easy to grasp while watching her sing, eyes closed. In fact, she didn’ look at the crowd much at all – except between songs, when stage banter was rambling, but wry (“This song is about desperation. So, uh, happy Valentine’ Day’).
It’s not often I get to go to my local and see a gig as lucid and refined as this one. The performance opened up Holter’ music for me – in particular Loud City Song. There are parts of the album that I initially found too mannered, but on stage they bloomed. It’s the kind of show that changes the way you listen to an artist, reverberating each time you go back to their work.
