Ars Cameralis: Julianna Barwick

"Her music unites the power of community with silent reflection on loneliness, and this relationship of unity with alienation largely determines the uniqueness of the emotional registers it attains." Pitchfork.com

Her greatest strength is her voice. From the debut of Sanguine in 2006, we know that he treats him like a musical instrument. Its leading character sets the whole range of the sound of her work. Defines the space of musical activity and the ability to dialogue.

Julianne Barwick's voice is not easy to describe, perhaps it is the meaning of her work. For nearly a decade, the audience has become accustomed to a musical celebration that is based on countless transformations, from overlapping multiple paths, combining chants, constantly looping and reaching different filters, to the use of whispers and whispers, the extraordinary anthropomorphic pliraphony. For phenomenal, though still seeking, voices.

Completely the original proposal of the singer was based on a very marginalized role of accompaniment, and actually lack of it. Perhaps the strategy of "dashing" with the voice, the strategy of surrendering to his constant waving, the narrowing of the perspective only to the sounds focused on themselves. For Julianne Barwick, for the first time, she avoided the clear articulation of texts, which - even if they appeared - were almost unrecognizable. Breakthroughs in her career became two records. The first is "Nepenthe" from 2013, whose title literally means "drug of oblivion", a medicine already known in ancient literature, and also in the stories of Edgar Allan Poe. On this publication, in 10 songs, she tasted a balance of past searches and experiments with the possibilities of the human voice. The disc was created in the winter scenery of Reykjavik. The artist also has other very important "Icelandic" experiences - she accompanied the formation of Sigur Rós during her American tour four years ago. A slightly different character is the later album "Will". An artist from Louisiana, retaining the old way of articulation, opened the door a little wider to his musical world, permitting additional sounds to pass through; In addition to the well-known violin and piano violin and countless songs, we also deal with the synthesizer sound. And what's most significant - a welcoming male voice also appears.

Julianna Barwick is a very peculiar phenomenon, located on the edge of any species divisions. Her music has been tried to interpret in a sacral context (the artist comes from a religious family, and the vocal chords she won in chorus), it was also combined with the metaphysical characteristic for eg Dead Can Dance. But its strength lies primarily in the ecstatic experience of being in a pure voice.

For more information about the Festival, visit: www.arscameralisfestiwal.pl

Source: Organizer promotional materials.