Dear Bi-Co Community,
Welcome one, welcome all, to the inaugural posting of the WHRC music column here at The Bi-College News. The idea was born from a desire to build more cross-organizational ties within the radio and because we all really love music. From articles on indie electronica concerts (our first contribution, read ahead!) to new album reviews, we hope to cover a broad range of music “news” – and, of course, hope to bring some new music to the attention of the bi-co community. Music brings people together, so listen to that new album with your friends, find those cheap last-minute concert tickets on StubHub, and enjoy WHRC’s Music Mondays.
Sincerely,
Tallulah Stallvik (Radio Board Member, Founder of Column)
Juliana Barwick is a vocalist, producer, and composer based in LA. She and harpist Mary Lattimore recently released a joint album titled Tragic Magic, a delicate and sweeping ambient work performed at their Friday night concert in the Sanctuary of Philadelphia’s First Unitarian Church. ear, an electronic duo based out of upstate New York, also recently released their debut album, The Most Dear and the Future, which they showcased alongside their other singles at the Cambridge Hall room of the Warehouse on Watts on Wednesday, March 18. I attended both alongside Clara Vy, fellow WHRC E-board member. Seeing the shows back-to-back provided an interesting comparison of musical interests and listening experiences.
Two college friends, Yaelle Avtan and Jonah Paz, make up what the No Bells music blog calls “the new twee band.” I situate ear in a lineage that starts with Yung Lean and Snow Strippers and most recently traces to Bassvictim and the Hellp; their debut single, Nerves, had a moment after being placed on Spotify’s Cph+ playlists, which “explore[s] the alt-sounds of Copenhagen and beyond 🌀”. ear has a sparse, simple, but extremely well produced sound, with ripping bass in some moments and quiet voices in others. Their music makes you feel cool.
I did feel cool, dancing in the crowd at their show. I must give due coverage to the opener, rapper-producer Swords2, whose emorap had (at least most of) the crowd moving and singing along. I also must mention the fact that Swords2 kept his computer turned towards the audience the whole time, and every so often his computer would sleep, because he had forgotten to turn low power mode off. By the fourth time it happened the crowd started to warn him before the music stopped. I mention this not to disparage Swords2 or his music in the least bit; actually, I think that the general positive vibes of the show and how much people liked the music despite the technical difficulties is a credit to him. It was a fitting way to start the show, which felt intimate and amateurish in the best way.
It was only a brief intermission before ear took the stage. Their show was short—as to be expected, with only an album and a couple singles to their name—but sweet. Their live version of Valley Serpent, featuring bird calls and a deeper and wider bass sound, felt entirely new. ear’s style, with whispering vocals and soft sounds that build towards huge synth-and-bass moments so loud you can hear them beat in your chest, translated well to a live audience.
What struck me most about ear, both live and on their album, was the sparseness and lightness that they brought to such a heavy electronic sound. The whole is much more than the sum of parts. The danceability and the resonance of ear’s music is created with minimum embellishment, such that instrumentation is sparse and no sound is wasted. This doesn’t give an overly thin or avant garde effect, though; I could play ear in the car, or in the club.
Two days after this experience, I got to see Juliana Barwick and Mary Lattimore at the “Sanctuary” of the First Unitarian Church. I was unprepared for how beautiful it would be. The high painted ceilings and stained glass windows fit with the sweeping, choral, atmospheric sound of Tragic Magic, the duo’s recent collaborative album. Plus, the acoustics were great.
Barwick and Lattimore met in First Unitarian, at a show played by Barwick in the side chapel. They have been longtime collaborators and friends; Lattimore played on several songs on Barwick’s 2020 album Healing is a Miracle, and on 2021’s “Canyon Lights”. Their debut joint album comes ten years later, with this show as the second stop of the East coast leg of their tour. In partnership with Paris’ Musée de la Musique, it was recorded entirely in a nine-day session with co-producer Trevor Spencer on rare or old instruments, like the Roland JUPITER and a series of harps dating from 1728 to 1873.
Jeff Ziegler, longtime collaborator, opened the show with an ambient synthesizer set. Ziegler is a producer, musician, and engineer based in Philadelphia; he has recorded albums by Kurt Vile and the War on Drugs, among others. His set was simple but hypnotizing, with slow-building drums that echoed in the space.
Juliana Barwick’s voice has exactly the same clear, angelic quality live as she does on a recording. Paired with the harp by Lattimore, plus a sampler and some synths played by Barwick as she sang, I felt taken to church. The slow and gentle build of each song was delicately and precisely played out, with deep shallow bass underscoring the peaks. Both artists did a lot of live looping, with vocals and harp, that was as technically impressive as it was pretty-sounding.
I loved seeing this duo after seeing ear for a couple of reasons. One was that I was tickled by the difference in crowd—the same population, really, just aged up by about five years for Barwick and Lattimore—but mostly I found that both (or all) of the artists were interested in sparseness of sound, or depth of sound, over embellishment and complication.
For ear and Barwick & Lattimore, any effects the music has are achieved with a minimum, not a maximum; there was a deep carefulness and a deep simplicity that, for me at least, facilitates immersion and connection to the sound. Sitting at Juliana Barwick and Mary Lattimore made me feel immersed in the musical experience, just as dancing at ear made me feel part of something.
