Julia Holter
Have You In My Wilderness
(Domino)
Across three albums released between 2011-13, LA-based Julia Holter built a reputation as a rather cerebral songstress, perhaps a little cold and elusive in her writing style. Here, however, that shell of intelligent art protects a pearl of beautiful pop, as Have You In My Wilderness emerges as absolutely one of the best albums of 2015. How Long, with its elongated vowels and Euro-languid vocal ("Do you know the proper way to ask for a cigarette?"), outdoes Lana Del Rey at her own wicked game, each syllable an exaggerated whisper of a breath. Vasquez, on the other hand, takes an acoustic double bass and shuffle-and-stumble drum beat as the basis for a mesmerising jazzy construction, as does Silhouette, although its sweet melody ultimately gives way to Kate Bush dramatics that show up Florence Welch as the overblown arena-circuit diva that she is. There's even a hint of Chvrches behind the harpsichord and angelic choir girl on Feel You, hinting at fresh commercial territory beyond Holter's established niche.
Alan Morrison
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here