Although these tracks are definitely memorable and will probably go on to great success, a longer album would have made it stick out just a little bit more.ĭon’t worry, though, the album’s closing track That’s The Kind Of Woman is one of the best. Clocking in at only thirty minutes, it’s easily one of the most breezy and light listens in recent months in terms of pop. “Done holding onto myself / You took a pessimist and turned me into something else”, she sings in the chorus.Īt times, it is easy to wish that Not In Chronological Order was even just a few minutes longer. The chilling lyrics accompanied by the ferocious but calm way Michaels sings them make this an immediate standout.Ī few of the tracks such as Pessimist follow in the more generalized pop sound, but the track is saved with yet another stroke of great writing and Julia Michaels’s vocals. Rarely would one say that a pop song is able to give you goosebumps, but this song does. But about thirty to forty-five seconds in the song takes a drastic turn and becomes much more fiery and angry with a strong chorus: “ I want to kill all the memories that you save in your head / Be the only girl that’s ever been in your bed / I want to live in a world where all your exes are dead”. However her future career plays out, tonight proves that Holter is a rare talent, and being present here is to witness at close quarters one of the great singer-songwriters of her generation hitting a creative peak.The album starts off with All Your Exes, a song that, at first, sounds relatively quiet and almost peaceful. It’s the perfectly poised balance between the two that has made her so cherishable. Then again, it’d be a shame if she played the contrary card and recorded an out-there album which alienated her army of new admirers. It’s highly unlikely that she’ll ditch her avant-garde tendencies altogether and head for the mainstream. Where she will go next is anyone’s guess. It’s perfectly done and illustrates how Holter stands on the cusp between a cult following and much broader success. On the other hand, the main set concludes with Vasquez, complete with an extended experimental jazz section. The new album is covered well, though she does skip Everytime Boots despite a new promotional video. She opens with the slow-burning City Appearing from her previous album Loud City Song, and fits in the spellbinding Goddess Eyes, one of her oldest songs. Nor is the set-list making too many concessions to those new fans. Occasionally she takes a fortifying sip of wine before embarking on the more intense songs, at one point explaining, “wine makes me sing better”.īacked by a tight trio providing strings, percussion and vocals, Holter does a fine joy of translating the cinematic soundscapes of her work for a live setting, albeit losing a little of Have You in My Wilderness‘s pop clip. The sheer joy she takes in playing her music, and presumably in playing it to sharply increasing numbers of people, is heartening and infectious. Now, standing behind a keyboard, wry and shy, she’s not exactly a show-boating performer but she manages to be riveting nonetheless. At one point she reminisces, not unkindly, about playing the nearby Burgess Institute to a tiny audience back in 2012. Tonight Holter is playing to a sold-out crowd at Manchester’s Gorilla. The album rated highly in the major ‘End of Year’ polls, topping many of them. It tempered her more outlandish excesses by ramping up the pop tuneage and forefronting Holter’s magnificent voice, without submersing her intelligence one jot. Then, last September, Holter released her fourth album, Have You in My Wilderness. But her smart, inventive music was undoubtedly something of an acquired taste. She’d already released three beautiful, acclaimed and highly idiosyncratic albums (she started recording the first, Tragedy, at home using the free software program Audacity) which drew inspiration from all sorts of sources: Euripides, Virginia Woolf and films from Gigi to Last Year at Marienbad. This time last year, few music fans knew the name Julia Holter.
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