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Music

Julianna Barwick, Mary Lattimore – The Four Sleeping Princesses

It’s very encouraging to have an album this good released so early in the year. Tragic Magic pairs Julianna Barwick and Mary Lattimore in a collaboration recorded at the Philharmonie de Paris, made with rare access to instruments from the Musée de la Musique collection through InFiné. Co-produced with Trevor Spencer, the album was created in nine days, building from improvisation and the emotional carry-on of the moment.

Lattimore chose a run of historic harps that map the instrument’s evolution from the early 18th to late 19th century. Barwick worked with classic synthesisers including a Roland Jupiter and a Sequential Circuits Prophet-5, bringing soft-edged harmonic colour and air around the notes. The Four Sleeping Princesses may be a highlight, but its far from the only reason to immerse yourself in this forest of lushness.

https://marylattimoreharpist.bandcamp.com/track/the-four-sleeping-princesses

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Music

Julianna Barwick – Open

Last month Moog Music launched the Moog Sound Studio, a new semi-modular synthesizer “aimed at both beginners and seasoned professionals”, which supposedly provides everything you need to get started on your path to musical greatness. Except talent of course: you need to provide your own. To celebrate the launch Moog teamed up with a load of amazing artists to demonstrate the capabilities of the MSS, including Ela Minus, Bonobo, Peter Cottontale and Julianna Barwick, none of whom are short of talent and all do excellent jobs in making this look easy. Barwick’s Open is a sinister delight, with her unmistakable vocal accompanied by muted percussion and church organ-like tendrils of Moog-y goodness.

https://juliannabarwick.bandcamp.com

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Music

Julianna Barwick – Oh, Memory feat. Mary Lattimore

I’ve loved pretty much everything Julianna Barwick has done over the past decade, so waking up to a new album of hers today was a very welcome surprise. Healing Is A Miracle is everything I’d hoped it would be: immersive, soothing, emotional, fragile, beautiful. Oh, Memory is an early highlight, and further cements my yearning for live shows come back in some form really soon, as if I don’t have the opportunity to listen to this in a church or similarly reverential venue I’m going to be very disappointed.

https://juliannabarwick.com