Some artists challenge expectation, others challenge the form itself. Challenge it to be better. Challenge it to be different. Challenge it to mean something.
The word challenging often has a negative connotation when it comes to album reviews, usually suggesting an artist has lost focus, but what no-one ever says is what challenging should mean; music should challenge on every level, and Julia Holter seems fully aware of that across every minute of her expansive new album Aviary.
No stone is left unturned and no moment left drifting or words unsaid as Aviary pushes aggressively in every direction and covers a lot of ground doing so. Opener Turn The Light On is chaotic and bombastic but driven, it pulsates and pushes and pulsates some more, delivering heaving, heavy breaths through shimmering vocals. It’s operatic in scale and tone and unusual in every other way.
More than that, it’s a truly memorable start to the record, yet absolutely no indication of what is to come. There are undulating fairy tales like Another Dream that feel like Disney on Psychotropics or a 70’s horror soundtrack that morphs into a summer’s day on Chaitius. And that’s just for starters.
Underneath The Moon is peculiar, slightly poppy, a little eastern bazaar and teetering on psychedelic. It’s a mess of brilliance that transports us somewhere sublime. Everyday Is An Emergency begins as a cacophony and ends as a haunting lullaby. The album is an elegant puzzle of pieces that seemingly have no matching sides, yet all come together to form something stunning.
This is particularly true on moments like Whether’s short, sweet and off-kilter psyche pop stroll. It’s as unexpected as it is fascinating, while I Shall Love 1 delivers a massive finish to the record that feels like the Velvet Underground’s Sister Ray clashed aggressively with The Beatles’ All You Need is Love and Within You Without You at the same time. Words I Heard, in contrast, is a compelling ballad that delivers real emotion from start to finish. Truly beautiful and powerful.
Les Jeux To You, which may be the ‘songiest’ song on the album, veers wonderfully into The Slits and Kate Bush territory simultaneously and is stunning and possibly the best moment on the record.
What all this delivers is something uncompromising, challenging in fact. The record’s constant unerring and unnerving search for transformation brings to mind The Mars Volta’s Eriatarka. They sound nothing alike, but they are playing with their food in similar ways, bound by nothing other than the ideas they have. Every song starts somewhere, but that’s no indication of where the song is going and how it will finish. This quickly becomes that, there is here, and all other manner of inconsistencies and questions.
Much of the album transcends simple forms and structures but without becoming bizarre jazz or ambient noise. It’s experimental music with a point, unexpected but always full of purpose. Yes, Aviary is non-linear and full of lunar insanity that shoots for the stars, but that’s kind of the point.
Who needs structure when you have inspiration and beauty like this on your side.