Singer and composer Julianna Barwick and harpist Mary Lattimore have been friends, tourmates and kindred musical spirits for a good few years, and both are known for their immersive, delicate and often harmonically complex compositions. It’s surprising that this collaboration took so long to come about. But in a way, it’s good that they waited, because it meant the circumstances were just right (it puts you in mind of one of those desert plants that only blooms once a century and requires precisely the right conditions). The circumstances in this case included a trip to Paris to record in the Philharmonie de Paris using instruments from the Musée de la Musique. Lattimore chose three antique harps and Barwick got her hands on an array of vintage analog synths, and a small part of the appeal of this insanely good record is imagining the glee with which they embraced the chance to play, for the nine-day duration of their recording session, these historically important instruments.
But if you know anything about the way either of these musicians works, you will have guessed that this album was never going to be a simple essay on the music of the past. Both are known for their experimental and broadly modernist leanings, but also for their ability to create pieces of music that conjure up very specific and usually beautiful moods. On Tragic Magic, both the experimentation and the beauty seem to be magnified. They ease us in with Perpetual Adoration, which begins with Lattimore’s pretty harp melody and is soon awash with Barwick’s swooning, soothing vocal. The synths are deployed minimally at first, but grow to create a lush and deeply forested musical landscape.
There is always the possibility with music that falls in or adjacent to the category of ‘new age’ that it might start sounding too mannered, too twee or too samey. Tragic Magic avoids all of these pitfalls with admirable dexterity. Every track changes things up, if only by subtle means. The Four Sleeping Princesses marries neo-classical stylings with post-rock’s slow build, while employing a technique of repetition and slight change that owes something to minimalism. As a result, the mood shifts within the track’s seven minutes from serenity to something more unnerving, and then to an extended moment of release, where Barwick’s vocals approach the richness and strangeness of Liz Fraser. On Haze With No Haze, Lattimore’s simple harp motif develops in multiple directions, becoming a complex theme over which Barwick’s voice floats freely, multitracked and looped. About two-thirds of the way through, the song takes on an icier cast, as the harp rises in pitch, its notes seeming to multiply in little explosions, before it drops out altogether, leaving only the warm tones of the synth.
Barwick’s synth sets the tone for Stardust, a sweeping, futuristic foray into deep time and space that bears comparison to Stratosfear-era Tangerine Dream. It includes the album’s most percussive passages. Closing track Melted Moon is, by contrast, the most starkly present composition here. Created as a response to the California wildfires that broke out just before the pair recorded the album, its filigree-like harp patterns seek solace in small and natural things, while it is notable for containing Barwick’s clearest and most unfiltered vocals. While it is plaintive and worried, it also possesses a strength and hope that can be felt through Lattimore’s playing, which has a determined and unbroken quality.
The variety of mood and style makes itself felt in other ways too. We are even treated to a couple of covers. Roger Eno’s Temple of the Winds is a small, fluttering delight which splices baroque and modern elements so successfully you can’t see the joins, and Rachel’s Song, from the Blade Runner soundtrack, seems to show us a markedly different future world to Vangelis’ original vision: a cold and depopulated place, perhaps, but one that still has the potential for beauty and love. And those two things, beauty and love, seem to be at the heart of Tragic Magic. It is a radiant album, confident in its unique sound, which lingers in the memory long after its last notes fade out.
Melted Moon (Live Session From San Diego, CA):
Tragic Magic (January 16th, 2025) InFiné
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