The Magic Place
Encyclopedia
The Magic Place is the debut album by ambient
artist, Julianna Barwick
. The album released on February 21, 2011 by Asthmatic Kitty Records
.
and Ambient
.
Upon completion of the album, Barwick said:
Julianna's mostly-a-capella music is built from her voice multi-tracked through a loop station. There's more backing instrumentation on this one than on previous albums but it's the vocals—soaring high in reverb-drenched, wordless harmonies—that matter most here. It's the layered fragments and pieces that become an intricate pattern through technology; it's the sound of a rising thing, a big group harmony as a splash of sunlight through a car window, a sound.
Julianna Says:
She Says:
, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 82, based on 18 reviews, indicating "generally favourable reviews". Allmusic writer, K. Ross Hoffman gave a positive review to the album and awarded it with 4 stars out of 5 and noted: "her sound has a comfortingly homespun, unfussy quality, and a patient, uplifting serenity, that remain uniquely her own". The most positive review came from MusicOMH
that praised the album with four and half star out of five and wrote: "Julianna Barwick is crafting gorgeously effecting sounds in a way that nobody has quite heard before, far beyond the snickering Enya
comparisons or the reductive ties to Brian Eno
s ambience, this isn't music for thinking or studying, this is just music for living". Mark Richardson of Pitchfork
called the album one of the best new music of 2011 and commented on it: "The Magic Place, her first album for Asthmatic Kitty, stands above her earlier work in virtually every way". PopMatters
also gave a positive review to the album and wrote: "Try as you might to explain Julianna Barwick's incomparable, indescribable music, maybe it's best to let The Magic Place do all the talking, because the results speak for themselves". Mojo
magazine praised the album on their Jun 2011, p. 96 issue and noted: "The Magic Place is her most fully involved album, suffused with the warmth of fond memories and a deep, dream-like resonance." Uncut
magazine was also positive on the album with 4 star out of 5 and wrote: "The sense of naive wonder evident recalls the bewitching power of Sigur Rós
." Sputnikmusic
gave it 4 stars out of 5 and commented on it: "It's Barwick's most evocative instrument, one that sparkly piano notes can only help fill the room for, and one with which she diminishes too many comparisons to Panda Bear and other leftfield pop musicians". The Village Voice
gave a positive review and wrote: "The Magic Place, Barwick's first release on Asthmatic Kitty, trails a dreamlike reverie across its 45 minutes". BBC Music
was positive on the album and wrote: "The Magic Place, splendidly, isolates the listener, cuts them off from the world around them".
the only mixed review came from Slant Magazine
which gave the album 3 stars out of 5 and wrote: "In the end, The Magic Place is a beautiful, ambiguous diversion better suited as a companion soundtrack to some experimental film or art installation than as the debut for a promising young singer".
Ambient music
Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...
artist, Julianna Barwick
Julianna Barwick
Julianna Barwick is an American musician who was born in Louisiana and raised in Brooklyn. Her music is built around multiple loops and layers of her voice...
. The album released on February 21, 2011 by Asthmatic Kitty Records
Asthmatic Kitty
Asthmatic Kitty is an American independent record label founded in 1999 by a community of musicians from Holland, Michigan led by musician Sufjan Stevens and his stepfather Lowell Brams. Some were Holland natives, and others had come to attend local colleges and universities...
.
Background
Barwick started working on her album in mid 2010 and in early 2011 the album released by Asthmatic Kitty Records. The album was under New Age musicNew Age music
New Age music is music of various styles intended to create artistic inspiration, relaxation, and optimism. It is used by listeners for yoga, massage, meditation, and reading as a method of stress management or to create a peaceful atmosphere in their home or other environments, and is often...
and Ambient
Ambient music
Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...
.
Upon completion of the album, Barwick said:
Julianna's mostly-a-capella music is built from her voice multi-tracked through a loop station. There's more backing instrumentation on this one than on previous albums but it's the vocals—soaring high in reverb-drenched, wordless harmonies—that matter most here. It's the layered fragments and pieces that become an intricate pattern through technology; it's the sound of a rising thing, a big group harmony as a splash of sunlight through a car window, a sound.
Deep into The Album
the meaning of every track confirmed and wrote by her record label, Asthmatic Kitty:- Envelop: It is Julianna's voice and a warm drone of synth and it builds into a great crystalline tower of fragile sound as more Juliannas join the first Julianna in a triumphant super-choir. Her inspiration here is the a capella church hymns she grew up singing; the way a roomful of diverse voices can join together to fill up a space.
Julianna talks about her church singing days: And "hymn" is an operative word here—these are like ecstatic church hymns building in power as more voices join the congregation, rising to the rafters, progressing with extreme patience, based on a slow, almost glacial pace that leads to something bigger than itself. These are patient songs and in the patience comes the record's most sublime and captivating moments. It ends with a hypnotic piano line that echoes out like some kind of beautiful, strange, lonely bird call; the sound of a loon on a dusky marsh, the reddening sky sprawled wide on the horizon, the low wetlands all around. - Keep Up the Good Work: Julianna's multi-tracked voices joining together like some kind of an alien space aria in front of an audience of stoked E.T.s. Like Sigur RósSigur RósSigur Rós is an Icelandic post-rock band with classicaland minimalist elements. The band is known for its ethereal sound, and frontman Jónsi Birgisson's falsetto vocals and use of bowed guitar. In January 2010, the band announced that they will be on hiatus. Since then, it has since been announced...
's ethereal glossolalia, there's a very particular joy in listening to Julianna's music. Free of the constraints of narrative and traceable language, it's the same joy in giving yourself over to opera in a foreign language, of letting go of your pesky rational mind and allowing the feeling to come through in the voices and performance. The title track is next, a reverb-y beauty queen that soars to Promethean heights and builds its own kind of safe haven in the clouds, a thing made of pewter and glass, of ice and gold straw. Toward the end, all the weaving, prismatic, accompanying voices drop out and it's Julianna alone on an undercurrent of reverb. Her voice has never sounded better.
- Cloak: It leads us into the record's middle section an aesthetic is established—a firmly rooted and realized idea, the vocals and post-minimalist instrumentation making a thing that feels entirely hers, each part important to the whole. Even the gaps between songs are essential to the album's listening experience—a sigh between stories or silence-as-drone, each second important.
- White Flag: A songtitle that hints at surrender, but according to Julianna it's not the surrender before defeat, it's the surrender to a new love.
Julianna going deep about this track: - Vow: It takes the listener gently toward the album's resolution. By the time the bass notes comes on there's a rhythmic foundation that gives the sparse music and vocals a kind of subtle epicness that never flaunts itself.
- Bob in Your Gait: It opens with an echoing, muted guitar which is then joined by a beautiful sun-dappled piano line. And that's the tricky thing about this music. There's a lot going on with the vocals from the first listen but it's the backing music that ends up surprising you.
- Prizewinning: It begins with a looping bassline. And then the willowy wisps of vocals come on, subtle at first, drifting in spirals until they're full-voiced. By the time the drums kick in at three and a half minutes we're as close as Julianna comes to full-band, and the result is celebratory, rumbling with life, and hauntingly engaging.
Julianna Says:
- Flown: Is a song Julianna wrote for her best friend's sister who passed away in 2010. "Flown" is a quiet, elegant way to end this record, a kind of final glide across the floor after the ballet's resolution. It's an ending scene but it's also a beginning—allow the album to cycle back to the first track and you'll see this is just a great glass ring spinning in the void, two arms joined in embrace, a homespun mantra and—in the end, and at the beginning—a circular journey.
She Says:
Reception
The Magic Place received very positive reviews from music critics. At MetacriticMetacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 82, based on 18 reviews, indicating "generally favourable reviews". Allmusic writer, K. Ross Hoffman gave a positive review to the album and awarded it with 4 stars out of 5 and noted: "her sound has a comfortingly homespun, unfussy quality, and a patient, uplifting serenity, that remain uniquely her own". The most positive review came from MusicOMH
MusicOMH
musicOMH is a United Kingdom-based website which publishes independent reviews, featues and interviews from across all musical genres including classical, metal, rock and R&B.-History:...
that praised the album with four and half star out of five and wrote: "Julianna Barwick is crafting gorgeously effecting sounds in a way that nobody has quite heard before, far beyond the snickering Enya
Enya
Enya is an Irish singer, instrumentalist and songwriter. Enya is an approximate transliteration of how Eithne is pronounced in the Donegal dialect of the Irish language, her native tongue.She began her musical career in 1980, when she briefly joined her family band Clannad before leaving to...
comparisons or the reductive ties to Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
s ambience, this isn't music for thinking or studying, this is just music for living". Mark Richardson of Pitchfork
Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...
called the album one of the best new music of 2011 and commented on it: "The Magic Place, her first album for Asthmatic Kitty, stands above her earlier work in virtually every way". PopMatters
PopMatters
PopMatters is an international webzine of cultural criticism that covers many aspects of popular culture. PopMatters publishes reviews, interviews, and detailed essays on most cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, comics, sports, theater,...
also gave a positive review to the album and wrote: "Try as you might to explain Julianna Barwick's incomparable, indescribable music, maybe it's best to let The Magic Place do all the talking, because the results speak for themselves". Mojo
Mojo (magazine)
MOJO is a popular music magazine published initially by Emap, and since January 2008 by Bauer, monthly in the United Kingdom. Following the success of the magazine Q, publishers Emap were looking for a title which would cater for the burgeoning interest in classic rock music...
magazine praised the album on their Jun 2011, p. 96 issue and noted: "The Magic Place is her most fully involved album, suffused with the warmth of fond memories and a deep, dream-like resonance." Uncut
UNCUT (magazine)
Uncut magazine, trademarked as UNCUT, is a monthly publication based in London. It is available across the English-speaking world, and focuses on music, but also includes film and books sections...
magazine was also positive on the album with 4 star out of 5 and wrote: "The sense of naive wonder evident recalls the bewitching power of Sigur Rós
Sigur Rós
Sigur Rós is an Icelandic post-rock band with classicaland minimalist elements. The band is known for its ethereal sound, and frontman Jónsi Birgisson's falsetto vocals and use of bowed guitar. In January 2010, the band announced that they will be on hiatus. Since then, it has since been announced...
." Sputnikmusic
Sputnikmusic
Sputnikmusic, or simply Sputnik, is a music website offering music criticism and music news alongside features commonly associated with wiki-style websites...
gave it 4 stars out of 5 and commented on it: "It's Barwick's most evocative instrument, one that sparkly piano notes can only help fill the room for, and one with which she diminishes too many comparisons to Panda Bear and other leftfield pop musicians". The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
gave a positive review and wrote: "The Magic Place, Barwick's first release on Asthmatic Kitty, trails a dreamlike reverie across its 45 minutes". BBC Music
BBC Music
BBC Music is a team working in the department of Audio and Music Interactive at the BBC. Responsible for the BBC Music website - the portal site to music content across the BBC website....
was positive on the album and wrote: "The Magic Place, splendidly, isolates the listener, cuts them off from the world around them".
the only mixed review came from Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine is an online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York Film Festival.- History :...
which gave the album 3 stars out of 5 and wrote: "In the end, The Magic Place is a beautiful, ambiguous diversion better suited as a companion soundtrack to some experimental film or art installation than as the debut for a promising young singer".
Track listing
Chart performance
| Country | Peak Position |
|---|---|
| Top New Age Albums | 4 |