Pitchfork

Photo by Ágata Xavier

She's self-released one record, the mini-LP Sanguine (13 songs, 24 minutes), but Brooklyn's Julianna Barwick has already played a few shows in Europe and recently appeared on Má Fama, the internet radio show broadcast from Lisbon, Portugal. You might remember Má Fama, which combines interviews with in-studio performance, from two previous Forkcasts (Kyp Malone and Animal Collective); the site also played host early this year to Panda Bear.

Animal Collective (and Panda Bear specifically) are an interesting reference point for Barwick's music. Generally, she creates tracks by looping short vocal phrases and arranging them into a one-woman choir, and the effect is sometimes reminiscent of tracks like Person Pitch's "Comfy in Nautica" or the more layered material on Young Prayer. Barwick, however, communicates with few recognizable words, letting the spires of harmony that she builds piece-by-piece do the talking. As she explains in the interview with Má Fama host Sérgio Hydalgo, her father worked in a church and she spent a lot of time there as a kid, amusing herself by singing in the building's empty auditorium. The liturgical connection in her music is obvious and welcome, adding a bit of spiritual weight and mystery. Barwick has a version of "Dancing With Friends" available for download on her website, and it's very good, but I like this live take even better. She extends it by a few minutes, allowing more time for the elements to lock in place, and her upper-register trills in the last third are more unhinged. It's beautiful and utterly transporting stuff, warm sunlight rendered into sound, and the rest of the music from the Má Fama broadcast is of the same caliber.

MP3:> Julianna Barwick: "Dancing with Friends"
[original track on Sanguine; out now on Florid]