(Ninja Tune)The Louisiana-born musician’s ambient fourth album is a ravishing affairThe aural equivalent of a Mark Rothko painting, the work of Louisiana-born, Brooklyn-based Julianna Barwick loops her voice in layers of soft, radiant texture to build an effect of sacred-feeling simplicity. Her fourth album is inspired by a return to instinct. If it feels less ambitious than its predecessor, 2016’s Will – which explored acoustic settings from a Moog factory to a motorway underpass – it’s also more ravishingly beatific.Inspirit ripples a reverbed melody over a bass synth that thrums like an interplanetary pipe organ, while the wordless keening of Wishing Well waxes and wanes like a lighthouse beam in fog. Hints of shadow keep Barwick’s bliss from becoming one-dimensional: pulses of vocal fire out like radar blips into a darker, emptier space in Flowers, while the album’s title track has the feel of a gothic afterworld, This Mortal Coil finally shuffled off. Continue reading...
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jul/12/julianna-barwick-healing-is-a-miracle-review-balm-for-the-soul