Amazon is kind of like that drunk friend whose waaaaaay too into music, tossing suggestions at you with only the vaguest of guidelines and a misguided sense of altruism. They know about so much music at once, that any suggestions are destined to be too broad to make much sense. A little sense, but not much. Oh, you like the Pretenders? You might like Aerosmith, too. Oh, you like Aphex Twin? You might like Slipknot, then. Oh, you like My Bloody Valentine? You'd probably like ABBA. If you think Siouxsie and the Banshees are good, just wait until you hear KISS!!!
Those are all real suggestions I've gotten from Amazon. I don't fucking know, either.
Most comparisons aren't logical in any immediate way, but hell if Amazon doesn't claw and scratch to connect those oh-so-distant dots. Of course, blind chance has to win out eventually (based on the law of averages) and, if only briefly, the website finds its moments of triumph. Every now and then, Amazon haphazardly delivers up a gorgeous suggestion that falls right in line with your particular taste. One that recently befell my "Recommended for You" page was Julia Holter's Ekstasis.
If you can imagine a fancy arisocrat's hedge maze, complete with classical statues and ornate fountains, sporadically being dragged into a deep black vortex, then you sort of have an idea of how Ekstasis plays out. It's an album that finds a strange grace in the chaos of vocal samplers and stream of consciousness song structures. You can tell that Holter enjoys the austere beauty of an ambient soundscape, but she also likes to chide and tease every once and a while.
In a sense, Holter is the fanciful young woman you find yourself playfully chasing through the hedge maze. Statues float by and crumble in her wake and ghostly versions of the singer appear randomly, her gentle vocals sweeping past in every direction. The album's enigmatic opener, "Marienbad" unfolds like a chamber choral performance, swirling organ and Holter's overdubbed vocals filling in the empty spaces. The lyrical content, as glib as it is, most likely references Last Year at Marienbad, a classic French New Wave film (one I personally hate) about a couple at a chateau comparing themselves to statues: "I can hear a statue/wonder why they're so still/all day in the garden", at least, I think that's what she's saying. It's hard to tell throughout much of the Ekstasis, because, as I said, Ms. Jules likes to be a bit of cheek. The way she cuts herself off and allows her overdubs to float up to the surface is her way of grinning widely and saying, "I dare you to read into this."
"In the Same the Room" is pretty much the closest thing to a traditional "pop" song Ekstasis has to offer and even then, Holter makes sure to loosen the reigns and see where her subconscious garden may take her. It may start out with a meditative organ and straight-ahead drum machine, but the structure is slashed with flourishes of her angelic overdub and briefly careens off the cliff into a plume of whistling and vibraphone.
Of course, her sense of humor and beauty shines the brightest on "Goddess Eyes I". The song is a vocorder mantra of sorts - Holter's effects-laden vocals wavering through like a depressing future Calvin Klein ad stuck on repeat, "I can see that the eyes are not alive to cry". The singer soon adds unfiltered vocal booms to extend the melody out in a strangely exciting way, showing that she has a rueful credence for the decorum in her hedge maze. The inevitability of the black vortex entices her, but the defacement of the garden disturbs her all the same.
It all works because the album isn't really about cohesive narratives or well-articulated ideas, as much as it's about the feelings and placement her music puts you in. Her strung-together phrases and helter skelter synthesizer arrangements evoke an amorphous sense of calm (like any good ambient) but also inscrutable mystery. Holter's lure into the hedge maze of Ekstasis may be forboding, but amidst the tall green walls, stone gazebos and Greek statues that litter the garden, there is always a presiding serenity. The singer wants you to embrace the vortex, but to never let go of your bearings.
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