Julia Holter – Queen City Sounds and Art

&Tilly’s Video for New Age Dream Pop Single “In Circles” Transports Us to an Aquatic World of Tranquil Contemplation

&Tilly’s video for “In Circles” was shot entirely on iPhone but its color palette and textural detail looks like something that could be part of an A24 film set in parallel universe. We see a figure seeming to be floating on and in azure waters with visuals of luminous, aquatic invertebrates floating gracefully about and a shoreline of darkened trees. The music itself is elegant layers of processed piano, sublimely subtle guitar and ethereal percussive sounds and hushly melodious vocals. Perhaps even plucked violin to give it all an even more classical sensibility that lends the song a timeless aspect like something that could have come from a more pop 90s New Age alternative music realm for fans of Enya and Loreena McKennitt or newer artists like Cate Le Bon or Julia Holter. But &Tilly’s sound is also in the realm of dream pop but with more than usual mastery of sonic details masterfully orchestrated. Watch the video for “In Circles” on YouTube and follow &Tilly at the links provided.

Elly Kace Dissolves the Layers of Ego on Experimental Jazz Pop Single “Disappear”

Elly Kace’s versatile voice is at the center of “Disappear.” The rhythmic deployment of guitar and bass early in the song, returning like a theme later on, frame Kace’s widely emotive vocals processed to enhance a sense of a centered focus and of introspective expansiveness. Vocals lines are layered upon one another in a gently cascading flow of melody like leaves falling from a tree and swirling slowly around, facets of emotion that express a tapestry of expressive complexity in a manner that feels organic even if planned and executed with an impressive display of skill in production and performance. And for a song that seems to be about the acceptance of the impermanence of life and the folly of clingy attachment it manifests the shedding layers of ego in the way the song goes from a clarity and jazz-like informal structure to a haze of elements dissolving into a tonal brightness. If it’s a pop song it’s more like something avant-garde electronic composer Laurel Halo or ambient folk auteur Julia Holter might do. Watch the video for “Disappear” on YouTube and follow Kace at the links provided.

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Maroulita de Kol Arranges the Musical the Elements of “The Water” Like Inspired Choreography

Maroulita de Kol, photo courtesy the artist

Maroulita de Kol sets in motion an intricate piano line that runs through “The Water” while her own vocals float and soar with an elegance of expression of movement, bolstered by a second vocal slightly distorted. Background drones give the proceedings a moody cast and when the second piano introduces chords that ring out darkly in counterpoint to the running atmospherics with the vocals becoming even more active and interacting with the instrumentation like they are all finely choreographed set pieces in a dance performance. The song truly conjures images in your mind of a performance done for mystical purposes and as a manifestation of spiritual principles. Tempting to compare the composition to something by Björk from the early 2000s but may have more in common with avant-garde makers of music like Anna von Hausswolff and Julia Holter. Listen to “The Water” on Soundcloud and follow Maroulita de Kol on Spotify.