by Julia Holter
Loud City Song is the new studio recording by Los Angeles based artist Julia Holter. The album is Holter’s third full length release in as many years – following 2011’s groundbreaking debut Tragedy and last year’s follow-up, the critically lauded Ekstasis.
Her first studio album proper, Loud City Song is both a continuation and a furthering of the fiercely singular and focused vision displayed by its predecessors, taking as it does Holter’s rare gift for merging high concept, compositional prowess and experimentation with pop sensibility and applying it to a set of even more daringly beautiful arrangements and emotionally resonant songs.
Holter’s artistic process is a ceaseless outpouring. She often conceives, writes and records material intended for numerous records at once – recalling and remoulding various strands of ideas and inspiration as the remarkably vivid worlds and the detailed narratives her records conjure come into focus over time.
The songs that make up Loud City Song have origins that pre-date even 2011’s debut Tragedy – coaxed out and finessed as demos in Holter’s bedroom studio and then finally coalesced into one thrillingly cohesive experience in the latter stages of 2012 by Holter and co-producer Cole Marsden Grief-Neill and an ensemble of Los Angeles musicians. The result is an album of enormous ambition - taking its cues from the likes of Joni Mitchell and the poetry of Frank O’Hara but forging those inspirations into something resolutely unique.
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