St Giles-in-the-Fields, London
There are a number of reasons for having doubts about Julianna Barwick's odd musical methods, but they all quickly fade away
Each song by Julianna Barwick – composition might be the better word – follows roughly the same pattern. She'll begin with a few sung notes or perhaps just a sequence of ghostly ooh-ooh-oohs. These are looped, and as the song progresses, their pitch, resonance and volume are subtly altered; Barwick's right hand rarely strays from a control deck on her keyboard. Variations are sung and looped and sung again over the top, commingling to create a sequence of questions, a sense of wonder and a mood that is troubled, searching and grave. Once this is established, some two-thirds of the way through she might introduce a few piano notes, sometimes solid, like mahogany, other times sharp as steel. The whole will rise in intensity and then abruptly, almost arbitrarily, it will stop.
The oddity of those endings could be a problem; in fact, all sorts of things about Barwick's methodology could be a problem. Sometimes she comes across as precious, and her sound can certainly be repetitive. At moments listening to her is like climbing inside a duck-down duvet and suffocating in its softness. Once or twice you facetiously wonder how many dolphins would flock to her cry.
But this is music that invites you to lay all cynicism down, to be absorbed by it, and transported. There are perhaps 10 intelligible words sung all evening, and yet the feeling conveyed by Barwick and her collaborators – a guitarist, mostly extraneous, and a choir of teenage girls – is exquisite in its eloquence, reflection and compassion. Perhaps it's the venue, a working Christian church, that brings out these qualities, but I don't think so: they're present in the album from which Barwick draws her set, Nepenthe, released a fortnight ago. What the venue does emphasise, however, is Barwick's poised stillness, and her music's quiet offer of a place to rest.
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