Last year, composer and experimental pop artist Julia Holter (Music/IM MFA 09) released her debut album on vinyl, Tragedy, on Aug. 30 via Leaving Records. The release, a mix of electronic pop and minimalist chamber music inspired by Euripides’ ancient Greek play Hippolytus, was listed at #4 on NPR’s The Best Outer Sound Albums Of 2011.
More about the album from Lars Gotrich on NPR’s All Songs Considered blog:
Talk about upsetting the year-end list apple cart: Tragedy only came to my attention but two weeks ago, but I haven’t been able to leave its world since. And make no mistake, Julia Holter’s Tragedy truly inhabits a world unlike any other. Those attuned to the modern Gothic atmospheres of [synthpop singer/songwriter] Zola Jesus and [ambient/noise musician] Grouper will no doubt be drawn to Holter, but she comes more from the [composer/vocalist] Meredith Monk spectrum of sonically-challenging ladies. Bits of musique-concrète, noise, drone, dreamy ’80s 4AD medieval-pop and avant-classical are the touchstones for an album centered around Euripides’ Hippolytus. But as academic as that all sounds, Tragedy pulls me into its emotional world as well, just as the curtain falls and the voices trail away at the finale.
The album also took the #1 spot on Boomkat’s Top 100 Albums of 2011, #13 on FACT Magazine Top 50 Albums of 2011 and received high praise from Pitchfork Media.
The video above is Holter’s Try To Make Yourself A Work Of Art and below is Goddess Eyes (both from Tragedy):
On March 8, RVNG Intl. releases Holter’s next album, Ekstasis. Below is Marienbad, a track from the forthcoming album.