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Nov 26, 2018 By Christopher Roberts Julia Holter

Julia Holter released a new album, Aviary, last month via Domino. It was our Album of the Week. Now she has shared a new video for “Whether.” Frequent collaborator Dicky Bahto directed the somewhat abstract clip. (Note: It’s labeled on YouTube as “Official Audio” but a press release is calling it a music video.) Watch it below, followed by her upcoming tour dates.

Bahto had this to say about the video in a press release: “When Julia asked me to make a video for ‘Whether,’ she said that I should ‘have fun with it.’ I decided to indulge in my love of hand-worked darkroom techniques. Exposing 16mm film prepared with cyanotype solution to the light of the sun on my balcony every afternoon over a couple of weeks, making the work in small pieces, meant that as the fires in Southern California darkened the sky with smoke, my exposures took increasingly long amounts of time to get images ever more faint. Julia wanted me to share this anecdote, since it fits the dystopian theme of the song, which is about the world collapsing around us because of climate change.”

Read our rave review of Aviary.

Previously she shared a video for Aviary‘s first single, “I Shall Love 2” (which was our #1 Song of the Week). Then she shared another new song from the album, “Words I Heard,” also via a video (and it was also our #1 Song of the Week). Once the album was released, album track “I Shall Love 1” also made our Songs of the Week list. She also shared a making of documentary about the creation of the album.

Aviary was initially inspired by a line from a 2009 short story by writer Etel Adnan: “I found myself in an aviary full of shrieking birds.” A previous press release pointed out that it’s a good metaphor for the daily bad news cycle we currently find ourselves in, especially in the modern political climate. “Amidst all the internal and external babble we experience daily, it’s hard to find one’s foundation,” Holter elaborated in the press release. “I think this album is reflecting that feeling of cacophony and how one responds to it as a person - how one behaves, how one looks for love, for solace. Maybe it’s a matter of listening to and gathering the seeming madness, of forming something out of it and envisioning a future.”

Holter later added: “In a lot of the songs, when I mention love, it’s about a seeking for compassion and humility in a world where it feels like empathy is always being tested.”

The Los Angeles-based artist released her fantastic fourth full-length album, Have You in My Wilderness, in 2015 via Domino (it made it to #4 on our Top 100 Albums of 2015 list). Since then she released the 2016 score for boxing drama Bleed For This, 2017’s In the Same Room, featuring her previous songs re-recorded live in the studio, and in January shared a new song, “So Humble the Afternoon,” as part of the Adult Swim Singles Program (it isn’t featured on the new album, but was one of our Songs of the Week).

Cole MGN executive produced Aviary, which was produced by Holter and Kenny Gilmore. The album also features Corey Fogel (percussion), Devin Hoff (bass), Dina Maccabee (violin, viola, vocals), Sarah Belle Reid (trumpet), Andrew Tholl (violin), and Tashi Wada (synth, bagpipes). When describing Aviary, the press release says the album “combines Holter’s slyly theatrical vocals and Blade Runner-inspired synth work with an enveloping palette of strings and percussion that reveals itself, and the boundless scope of her vision, over the course of 15 songs.”

Read our 2015 interview with Holter.

Julia Holter Tour Dates:

2018:

Nov 26 - Paradiso Noord, Amsterdam
Nov 27 - Schauspiel, Bochum, Germany
Nov 28 - De Roma, Antwerp
Nov 30 - Funkhaus, Berlin
Dec 1 - Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg
Dec 2 - Brotfabrik, Frankfurt
Dec 3 - Kammerspiele, Munich
Dec 5 - Petit Bain, Paris
Dec 6 - Gorilla, Manchester
Dec 7 - Fiddlers, Bristol
Dec 8 - Button Factory, Dublin
Dec 10 - Summerhall, Edinburgh
Dec 11 - Howard Assembly Rooms, Leeds
Dec 12 - Hackney Arts Centre, London

2019:

Feb 19 - U Street Music Hall, Washington DC
Feb 20 - Underground Arts, Philadelphia
Feb 22 - Warsaw, New York
Feb 23 - Brighton Music Hall, Boston
Feb 24 - La Sala Rossa, Montreal
Feb 26 - The Great Hall, Toronto
Feb 27 - El Club, Detroit
Feb 28 - Thalia Hall, Chicago
Mar 1 - Turf Club, St. Paul
Mar 4 - Imperial, Vancouver
Mar 5 - Doug Fir, Portland
Mar 6 - Neumos, Seattle
Mar 8 - Great American Music Hall, San Francisco
Mar 9 - Lodge Room, Los Angeles

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