★★★★½
Over the course of four albums and four years, Julia Holter has moved from avant-garde to avant-pop to now something that doesn’t take the ‘avant’ tag at all.
This creative restlessness has established her as one of her generation’s premier artists. Have You In My Wilderness is further proof, and her creative peak to date.
Beginning with the nostalgic ‘Feel You’, one immediately notices an increased accessibility and pop feel to Holter’s material. Thankfully, her music hasn’t moved into mainstream radio territory. Instead, Holter has created something of a Frankenstein ambient-jazz-pop concoction. Mix Talk Talk, Sade and Twin Peaks-era Julee Cruise and you get an approximation of what Holter has accomplished.
Though it’s her most immediate release, the songs aren’t straightforward. Where they end up is far removed from where they begin. The instruments – from drums to bass to strings – don’t play to serve the song. Rather, they each perform their own composed musical vignette that Holter has fit together like the perfect puzzle. Her voice serves as the anchor, with each song having innumerable hook lines that imbue what appear as lyrical non sequiturs with all manner of meaning.
Holter has matched her trademark dazzling music with melodies that could conceivably be whistled. It’s ostensibly a sell-out record – what a magnificent sell-out it is.
