Julianna Barwick

Barwick has said that her music is influenced by her participation in church choir while growing up in Louisiana. She composes with a machine to create electronic loops built around her vocalizing.[1]

She self-released her debut EP, Sanguine, in 2006. The songs are wordless with vocal overdubs, vocal percussion, and improvisation.[2] On the EP, Florine, she uses a loop station and pedals to create minimalist repetition accompanied by layers of vocals and synthesizers.[3] In 2010, Barwick was commissioned to remix "Reckoner" by Radiohead. During the next year, she released an album of improvisational music, FRKWYS Vol. 6, with Ikue Mori.[4]

She recorded her first full-length album, The Magic Place, on a rehearsal stage because it was soundproof and had a piano.[5] The title of the album refers to a tree on her family's farm that was big enough to crawl into, as though the tree contained rooms shaped by the trunk and branches.[6] In 2012, she formed the duo Ombre[7] with Helado Negro and recorded the album Believe You Me.[8]

The title of her second album, Nepenthe, was inspired by the death of a relative. The name comes from the drug of forgetfulness found in ancient Greek literature and the work of Edgar Allan Poe. The album features the string ensemble Amiina and a choir of teenage girls.[9]

In 2016, the song "Nebula", from her third album Will premiered on NPR. A music video directed by Derrick Belcham was shot at the historic Philip Johnson Glass House.[10]

On December 20, 2019, she released an EP, titled Circumstance Synthesis, and in July 2020 she released her fourth album Healing Is a Miracle.[11]