One of the inspirations behind Julia Holter Something in the room is moving French feminist theorist Hélène Cixous's 1996 essay, “Blind Writing,” explores the relationship between her writing, creativity, and the night. “What we call today prevents me from seeing,” he begins. “The sunlight of day blinds me to the seeing day. The glare of day prevents me from hearing. From seeing and hearing. From hearing myself. With me. With you. Along with mysteries.” Writing means searching for secrets hidden in the light of day, what Cixous calls “the skin of light.” In another article from the same book, ScarsCixous compares writing to music, and the night vibrates in its frequencies: “I see with my ears, I advance to the bosom of the world, with my hands before them, seizing the music with my palms, until something breathes under the beak of the pen.” It's something Holter seeks out and refers to in her new album — not just for its intensity, but because she understands it to be “the same night that love is made, where things merge, change, become infatuated, aroused, impregnated.” Possessed, liberated, renewed,” wrote Virginia Woolf.
Songs like “Sun Girl” and “Spinning” stand out, making them obvious choices for singles. But even those songs are colored by the improvisational qualities and playful smoothness of Holter's musical approach. “Sun Girl” is the most pop-focused track on the album, capturing the warmth almost instinctively, but happily, moving away from it, meandering into the heavenly melody of the chorus and toward the chaos swirling in the spaces in between. It touches the line between the childish and the dreamlike, which Holter interprets as a state of ecstasy. “Spinning,” the album’s exhilarating centerpiece, is more unsettling, longing to replace the blinding power of light with the power of darkness, where imagination can run wild: “I believe in the night that breathes alone / Distinct in the night / Pounce to fill my memory.” Weapons / In the night.” The lyrics of “This Morning” vaguely reference human conflict, but Holter seizes the opportunity to revel in the night she escaped, the words becoming blurred and drifting like time, slow and incomprehensible.
Although steeped in abstraction, there is a stark physicality to it Something in the room is moving, which is one of the most sensual and physical works of Holter's career. Although the music slips in different directions, it never strays far from the central goal of “evoking the body's inner sound world.” “Evening Mood” features a sample of an ultrasound session Holter recorded while she was still pregnant with her daughter while reflecting the surge of oxytocin flooding the mother’s system; The rush is what music conveys so well, but the heartbeat provides the reason. “Am I listening closely, sweetheart?” She sings, not so much leaning forward as attuning to the rhythm of bodies existing and growing together. The intimacy is so simple and natural that all Holter needs is a single phrase to create one of the album's most moving moments, pronouncing the title “Meyou” in such a way that the merging of the two themes becomes a meditative dance. In the cover art by Holter's childhood friend, artist Christina Quarles, you can't tell whether the characters are hugging or fighting; Here, there is no such question.
Whether breezy or startling, soothing or bombastic, Holter's production has always been immersive, and her latest work is too; What you do differently is remove distance from the people, spaces and ideas you interact with. Beyond the extremes of the singles, “Materia” is just Holter and Wurlitzer, a poignant composition despite its elusive poetry, while “Ocean” builds an entire soundscape of aquatic elements that permeate the record. She does not observe the bodies of water or the room she finds herself in; She inhabits them and digs them deep, going with what the title track describes as “feverish wonder.” “In the past, my recordings were more focused on the past or the future, or love from afar, as something more ethereal,” Holter said in an interview. but Something in the room He sees the present as an endless flow—of days and nights, of unsolved mysteries, of intertwined love and grief—and keeps his hands outstretched to all that passes through him. “Heaven can't take my love,” she pleads on “Speaking to a Whisper,” where the arrangement growls and screams at thought, but never quite holds back. It's a nocturnal record that doesn't fear the next morning, ending with the ballad “My love wakes up every day.” Holter guides us along each clip; All you have to do is listen.
