pitchfork florine review[8.2]
Julianna Barwick recently told Pitchfork that she didn't "think" there was any guitar on her new EP. We can sympathize with her hazy recollection of the specifics-- Florine leaves a lingering impression of unreality in its wake. A breadcrumb trail of piano and synthesizer guide us through the misty forest of Barwick's voice, and we come out on the other side wondering if it really happened. The mood is blissful and bewitching; lost, but somehow secure. [...more]

~ Brian Howe

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pfork track review 'bode' [best new music]
The almost a cappella music of Brooklyn-based producer Julianna Barwick is so dependent on loops you can almost think of it like techno: first there's the basic beat, then this part comes on, then another one plays off the first, and pretty soon all the short bits are banging around together and moving through variations, and you want to close your eyes and let it wash over you. She makes music by layering her voice over and over and constructs songs-- words may be there, but they're hard to make out, and don't matter much-- that move from ethereal openings to ecstatic peaks [...more]

~ Mark Richardson

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pfork forkcast (ray c vid)

Sunlight, Heaven: Julianna Barwick from Ray Concepcioñ on Vimeo.

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dusted 'destined' feature
The voice is always both meaningful and meaningless. Meaningful because it speaks in many codes – language, inflection, ideals of identity like femininity, youth, and soul. Meaningless because, as a materiality, it conveys each of these dumbly. The voice is the truck, not the cargo, let’s say. [...more]

~ Ben Tausig

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nytimes review

There’s no shame whatsoever in being the new Enigma, or Enya. I mean that completely seriously, and complimentarily. Julianna Barwick, who played the Chouette showcase Friday afternoon at Cake Shop, probably hasn’t thought of herself in such maligned company. For certain, she’s got better shoes, and that goes a long way.[...more]

~ Jon Caramanica

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eMusic select
Julianna Barwick understands who she is as both a person and an artist, and she exudes it. A solo artist in every sense, her live performances consist of little more than her singing into a microphone, her voice rendered hollow and enormous by reverb and effects. She sings just one measure at a time, some fragment of a melody like a car radio heard from miles away, and then she builds on it, recording the measure and looping it, live, erecting accents and harmonies and melodies and octaves and all measure of human sound, arriving at this cathedral of a thing, impossibly immense and gilded. Religions have been built around more.[...more]

~ Yancey Strickler

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