The Magic Place

The Magic Place
Studio album by Julianna Barwick
Released	February 21, 2011
Recorded	2010-2011
Genre	New Age Ambient
Length	43:44
Label	Asthmatic Kitty
Producer	Paul Gold, Julianna Barwick

The Magic Place is the debut album by ambient artist, Julianna Barwick. The album released on February 21, 2011 by Asthmatic Kitty Records.^[1]

Contents 1 Background 2 Deep into The Album 3 Reception 4 Track listing 5 Chart performance 6 References

Background

Barwick started working on her album in mid 2010 and in early 2011 the album released by Asthmatic Kitty Records. The album was under New Age music and Ambient.
Upon completion of the album, Barwick said:

“

"The Magic Place was a tree on our farm. It was in the back pasture. It was one tree that grew up, down and around. You had to crawl in and once you were inside, it was like there were different rooms, and you could actually lay in the branches. We named it 'The Magic Place' because it really was magical—especially for a kid... and that's how I feel about my life right now—without trying to sound too hippy dippy or cosmic, this year has definitely been a magical one."[1]

”

Julianna's mostly-a-capella music is built from her voice multi-tracked through a loop station. There's more backing instrumentation on this one than on previous albums but it's the vocals—soaring high in reverb-drenched, wordless harmonies—that matter most here. It's the layered fragments and pieces that become an intricate pattern through technology; it's the sound of a rising thing, a big group harmony as a splash of sunlight through a car window, a sound.

Deep into The Album

The meaning of every track confirmed and wrote by her record label, Asthmatic Kitty^[1]:

• Envelop: It is Julianna's voice and a warm drone of synth and it builds into a great crystalline tower of fragile sound as more Juliannas join the first Julianna in a triumphant super-choir. Her inspiration here is the a capella church hymns she grew up singing; the way a roomful of diverse voices can join together to fill up a space.
  Julianna talks about her church singing days:

  "You could really hear all the layers, harmonies, rounds, the men and the women, the claps... everything. Some of those hymns are so beautiful."

  And "hymn" is an operative word here—these are like ecstatic church hymns building in power as more voices join the congregation, rising to the rafters, progressing with extreme patience, based on a slow, almost glacial pace that leads to something bigger than itself. These are patient songs and in the patience comes the record's most sublime and captivating moments. It ends with a hypnotic piano line that echoes out like some kind of beautiful, strange, lonely bird call; the sound of a loon on a dusky marsh, the reddening sky sprawled wide on the horizon, the low wetlands all around.
• Keep Up the Good Work: Julianna's multi-tracked voices joining together like some kind of an alien space aria in front of an audience of stoked E.T.s. Like Sigur Rós's ethereal glossolalia, there's a very particular joy in listening to Julianna's music. Free of the constraints of narrative and traceable language, it's the same joy in giving yourself over to opera in a foreign language, of letting go of your pesky rational mind and allowing the feeling to come through in the voices and performance. The title track is next, a reverb-y beauty queen that soars to Promethean heights and builds its own kind of safe haven in the clouds, a thing made of pewter and glass, of ice and gold straw. Toward the end, all the weaving, prismatic, accompanying voices drop out and it's Julianna alone on an undercurrent of reverb. Her voice has never sounded better.
• Cloak: It leads us into the record's middle section an aesthetic is established—a firmly rooted and realized idea, the vocals and post-minimalist instrumentation making a thing that feels entirely hers, each part important to the whole. Even the gaps between songs are essential to the album's listening experience—a sigh between stories or silence-as-drone, each second important.
• White Flag: A songtitle that hints at surrender, but according to Julianna it's not the surrender before defeat, it's the surrender to a new love.
  Julianna going deep about this track:

  "What's funny is that song has been around for a long time, but it felt perfect with my current life stuff. It has been amazing."

• Vow: It takes the listener gently toward the album's resolution. By the time the bass notes comes on there's a rhythmic foundation that gives the sparse music and vocals a kind of subtle epicness that never flaunts itself.
• Bob in Your Gait: It opens with an echoing, muted guitar which is then joined by a beautiful sun-dappled piano line. And that's the tricky thing about this music. There's a lot going on with the vocals from the first listen but it's the backing music that ends up surprising you.
• Prizewinning: It begins with a looping bassline. And then the willowy wisps of vocals come on, subtle at first, drifting in spirals until they're full-voiced. By the time the drums kick in at three and a half minutes we're as close as Julianna comes to full-band, and the result is celebratory, rumbling with life, and hauntingly engaging.

Julianna Says:

"I was [recording] in a new studio space in Brooklyn, and there were lots of fun things to play with that I don't have myself, so it definitely opened up some creative opportunities to me. The song sort of had that triumphant feeling, and I could hear that it was leading up to something, so I played around with the high hat and snare, and it kind of worked out perfectly. After I put the drum-y stuff in there it felt almost like a marching band, a happy, elated marching band, and I've been feeling that feeling lately."

• Flown: Is a song Julianna wrote for her best friend's sister who passed away in 2010. "Flown" is a quiet, elegant way to end this record, a kind of final glide across the floor after the ballet's resolution. It's an ending scene but it's also a beginning—allow the album to cycle back to the first track and you'll see this is just a great glass ring spinning in the void, two arms joined in embrace, a homespun mantra and—in the end, and at the beginning—a circular journey.

She Says:

"At her funeral service the woman who gave a talk had a story about geese and flying, and I remember that really touched my friend."

Reception

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	82/100[2]
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[3]
Pitchfork	(8.5/10) [4]
BBC Music	(Positive) [5]
MusicOMH	[6]
Sputnikmusic	[7]
Mojo
The Village Voice	[8]
Slant Magazine	[9]

The Magic Place received very positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 82, based on 18 reviews, indicating "universally acclaim".^[2] Allmusic writer, K. Ross Hoffman gave a positive review to the album and awarded it with 4 stars out of 5 and noted: "her sound has a comfortingly homespun, unfussy quality, and a patient, uplifting serenity, that remain uniquely her own".^[3] The most positive review came from MusicOMH that praised the album with four and half star out of five and wrote: "Julianna Barwick is crafting gorgeously effecting sounds in a way that nobody has quite heard before, far beyond the snickering Enya comparisons or the reductive ties to Brian Eno's ambience, this isn't music for thinking or studying, this is just music for living".^[6] Mark Richardson of Pitchfork called the album one of the best new music of 2011 and commented on it: "The Magic Place, her first album for Asthmatic Kitty, stands above her earlier work in virtually every way".^[4] PopMatters also gave a positive review to the album and wrote: "Try as you might to explain Julianna Barwick's incomparable, indescribable music, maybe it's best to let The Magic Place do all the talking, because the results speak for themselves".^[10] Mojo magazine praised the album on their Jun 2011, p. 96 issue and noted: "The Magic Place is her most fully involved album, suffused with the warmth of fond memories and a deep, dream-like resonance." Uncut magazine was also positive on the album with 4 star out of 5 and wrote: "The sense of naive wonder evident recalls the bewitching power of Sigur Rós." Sputnikmusic gave it 4 stars out of 5 and commented on it: "It's Barwick's most evocative instrument, one that sparkly piano notes can only help fill the room for, and one with which she diminishes too many comparisons to Panda Bear and other leftfield pop musicians".^[7] The Village Voice gave a positive review and wrote: "The Magic Place, Barwick's first release on Asthmatic Kitty, trails a dreamlike reverie across its 45 minutes".^[8] BBC Music was positive on the album and wrote: "The Magic Place, splendidly, isolates the listener, cuts them off from the world around them".^[5]
the only mixed review came from Slant Magazine which gave the album 3 stars out of 5 and wrote: "In the end, The Magic Place is a beautiful, ambiguous diversion better suited as a companion soundtrack to some experimental film or art installation than as the debut for a promising young singer".^[9]

Track listing

Chart performance

Country	Peak Position
Top New Age Albums[11]	4

References