“I shall love.” The way you might go to the conservatory’s fern room in the dead of winter, the way you might attend a Polish Mass in a moment of crisis, the way you might check your favorite old webzine in the middle of the night, don’t go too far. Ave Maria on Maria Ave, she writes down the address for the Loud City Aviary, cheeping, where you sit and listen to the slowing spinning song, watch them cross, tweet, “Pedestrians are flightless birds.” Unbottled, I follow moss, though it couldn’t drag me away. I’m all all’s swell, sworn in birdsong, chiming in. I’ll forget how “Hello, Stranger” got me through a winter, I’ll forget the words I heard that sealed with wax will get me through this one again. The camera looks up, again and again, a spell to ward off darkness, the seasonal caring commentary of the House kids seeing the falling leaves and mistaking them for butterflies, or maybe saying, “Oh, pretty!” at some of the Virginia countryside. It’s the kettle, it’s the film, it’s feature-length (double LP). Have One On Me In My Wilderness, it’s Julia Holter back at the piano, in the studio, finding herself out of the woods, in the clear, right where you are, that’s where she loves, “in the city of man.” And how!
Aviary is out next Friday, October 26, via Domino.
More about: Julia Holter
