(100) Days of Soundtrack: #22 – Julia Holter – Have You In My Wilderness

The true gems of this process, I think, might just be the albums I know literally nothing about. Julia Holter was a perfect example. Have You In My Wilderness came out of nowhere, an album I’d never heard of from an artist I knew just as little about. Sure, there was a feeling that this might be brooding and moody music, but there were no guarantees. Anything could come of the album. Julia, for her part, obliged on the “anything.”

Holter opens her album with harpsichord and sighing vocals. She then proceeds to strangely choppy, almost robotic verses while that soundscape continues. It is quirky soundscapes like these where these songs live and breathe. Dull chimes rattle throughout “Lucette Stranded on the Island,” giving the song a chill even at its warmest. “Everytime Boots” starts with detuned dischord before floating into an odd ragtime feel. Even during simpler arrangements, like the pastoral hymn of “How Long,” Holter’s melodies take unexpected turns, as each single syllable hangs in the air hauntingly. When “Sea Calls Me Home” begins as a sweet introspective song, once again pulling out that harpsichord as the primary mode of backdrop, there is still a pounding, plodding percussion and a chorus of “I can’t swim,” and a sax solo that starts in the smooth jazz vein before being utterly debauched. There is a lot of dreamy, but there’s no shortage of tensions, and the unexpected comes often.

At first, then, the “Wilderness” of the title is not so clear. This is in many ways chamber music. Yet, as competing lyrical lines trade off in “Lucette,” and as strings and percussion froth and boil and wordless vocals swirl like spirits, that wildness becomes more evident. The subtle way that Holter’s voice strains against the languid strings of “Night Song,” as if it’s ready to break free, or the almost drugged unpredictability of that same voice on “Betsy on the Roof,” belies something animalistic being reined in. That’s exactly the sort of tension that is throughout this album… something holding back, just barely. “Vasquez” is perhaps the pinnacle, with quickening, shuffling beats, with detached but unquestionable yearning, with the same strings being held just a little too long to be calming, with jazz drum noodling whispering behind the atmosphere. It’s primal not in the feral way we think of when we hear the word, but more like the blood under our skin, or the instincts of a normally gentle animal sensing danger.

By the time that title track comes in, we get possibly the most straightforward of the songs on the album. Even here, the crux of the song is about “feeling you running away,” and by now it feels like a strange question to ask why one would do such a thing. It might not be the first thing you notice, or you might not know exactly why, but it seems hard to leave Have You In My Wilderness without feeling at least a little unsettled. It’s an album that might feel best kept at a distance, but it’s fascinating enough to be worth getting just a bit closer and taking a little more risk.