Julianna Barwick and the Music Of Iceland
"Echoes Of The Invisible" Production Photos From Chile
STEVE ELKINS: In my mind, your music was connected to “Echoes of the Invisible” from the beginning. I discovered your duo record with Ikue Mori in 2011, shortly before I flew down to Chile, where I was filming astronomers who were using the Atacama Desert - the driest desert on Earth - to unveil parts of the cosmos that had never been seen before. It was an extremely remote place, 17,000 feet high in the Andes on the border of Bolivia, with some of the best views of the stars on Earth. The lack of water vapor in the air allows the milky way to be so visible it can cast your shadow. Many nights, I would walk into the desert, lay down somewhere, and watch the milky way float across the sky while listening to your haunting, ethereal vocals...especially “Sunlight, Heaven” and “Cloudbank." In the earliest cuts of the film, I always used your music whenever I showed that sky. Over time, it shifted to other scenes, but it’s a remarkable coincidence that recently you began using the sky as a musical score to create compositions.
JULIANNA BARWICK: Yes, I was hit up by Ace and Microsoft. They were building this new hotel in New York called Sister City, that has a different vibe than most Ace Hotels. They came together and thought it would be cool to have a lobby score that worked with Microsoft Artificial Intelligence in some capacity, so that it would be ever changing and generative. The sounds that I made would be directly influenced by the AI, which was taking information from a camera perched on the roof, reading the downtown sky. The AI was made to recognize things like bright sun, an airplane going by, cloud formations, and birds, for example. I made individual sounds for each of those things and events that could trigger the AI at any moment. Every day it would be different because the AI and camera were reading these events like notes on a score in real time. It’s pretty exciting.
Julianna Barwick and Björk (Sister City Hotel, NYC)
ELKINS: I read somewhere that the AI is becoming more intelligent over time. So that over the years it's increasingly capable of recognizing the species of birds crossing the sky, their migration patterns and the time of year they’ve been there before, cloud density, barometric pressure...and the music evolves accordingly.
BARWICK: That’s interesting, I actually didn’t know about that aspect of it.
ELKINS: I got the impression they're testing AI's capacity for learning through the music, so it's apparently going to continue to evolve in unexpected ways over time. I understand that Björk contributed sounds that were incorporated into it?
Björk
BARWICK: Well I did the first lobby score, then she did the second one. Her sounds were all of the choral music that she has created over the years. The fact that I’m in her company in this project is extremely exciting. As for so many other people, her music changed my life.
ELKINS: When did you discover her?
BARWICK: I was a 13 year old in a mall in Tulsa, Oklahoma, deeply into Pearl Jam and Ace of Base or whatever, and I saw the cover of “Debut.” I was just drawn to it. I didn’t understand what it was, or what the strange language was on the packaging, so I took it home. At that point in my life, a solo female musician in my mind would be someone like Whitney Houston or Debby Gibson or Amy Grant or Enya. What I knew about music was blown open by that record, it was a mind-bending opening of my whole world. And then I found out she was from Iceland, and it seemed like a total fairy tale scenario. It really changed my life.
(WATCH): 1997 Björk Documentary (Part 1)
[Note: This inspiring British documentary on Björk's early work in the Iceland punk scene, up through her first few albums can be viewed above and below.]
(WATCH): 1997 Björk Documentary (Part 2)
ELKINS: It seems like Iceland has had a gravitational pull on you. Not only did its music change your life, but then you were invited by some of your musical heroes to record there.
BARWICK: Absolutely. As a fanatic of Björk and Sigur Rós, among other Icelandic artists, it was so magical. Kind of a “how did I get here” feeling. Jónsi is one of my all time favorite vocalists. To be invited to collaborate with Jónsi and Alex Somers, and other Icelandic artists like Amiina and Múm, was life changing in every sense of the imagination. And in an enchanting place that really exposed me to a lot of different ways of doing things.
It was my first time making music with anyone watching or listening. My earlier recordings—Sanguine, Florine, and The Magic Place—I had done 100% by myself up to mastering. Suddenly I’m not in my bedroom in Brooklyn anymore, I’m in Iceland where my musical heroes are from. And I’m being vulnerable with collaborators, which has never happened before on my solo records. Like when we recorded local teenage girls singing at the Sundlaugin studio, I had to tell them what I wanted them to do, which was so weird because I’ve never had to do anything like that before.
(WATCH): Julianna In Iceland, Working With Alex Somers And Local Singers
ELKINS: Is it true that studio has an abandoned swimming pool in it?
BARWICK: The studio used to be a swimming pool. It’s Sigur Rós’s studio, and when you walk in, you’re looking down into where the pool used to be. That’s where everything is recorded.
ELKINS: From what I know about Sigur Rós and Alex Somers, I picture that studio having all these unique trinkets and toys to make sounds with. Was that the case?
BARWICK: Not only there, but at Alex’s house where his home studio was. They were full of things to tinker around with: a whole trunk full of kids toys and sound makers. Lots of mini African marimba-style instruments. This beautiful upright piano with the front panel taken off, exposing the strings inside. Plus like 80 guitars and weird percussion. I mean, all kinds of stuff. It was very inspiring. I had never been in a proper recording studio before. And then suddenly we have Amiina performing strings for the record.
(WATCH): Alex Somers and Jónsi of Sigur Rós, "Riceboy Sleeps" Live
ELKINS: When you think back on that time, what are the things that you most wish you could share with people?
BARWICK: What the walks to Alex’s were like. How the air felt. The most incredibly stunning nature. I had my friend Derek Belcham of La Blogothèque there, and we did a few takeaway shows, one on the edge of a crater lake. No one around.
(WATCH): Julianna Performing At A Crater Lake In Iceland
BARWICK (cntd): Having lived in New York City for sixteen years, I’m always just kind of dumbstruck when I’m in an environment where there’s no noise pollution, where I can actually hear my heartbeat. One night, I walked home from a party along the ocean in Reykjavík, and it just looked like it was glowing. And then there were the emotional connections I made with people, all those kind of things. I asked Amiina if they had ever had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in Iceland, which they hadn’t. So I made them peanut butter and jelly sandwiches the day they recorded. They loved them a lot. So that was fun.
(WATCH): Amiina Performing With Sigur Rós in Iceland
ELKINS: It worked out so perfectly that the music you contributed to “Echoes” was recorded in Iceland in the midst of those experiences. Even though the film does not take place there, it definitely explores the ripple effects of peoples' relationship to their environment. To what extent do you think “place” impacts your relationship to yourself and your music? I’m thinking for example the contrast of being in Tulsa versus being in Iceland.
BARWICK: I’m very moved by the profound connection people can have with a particular spot on earth. That’s an aspect of your film that resonates with me so much. Because I’m emotionally influenced by weather, what the sun’s doing, what the moon’s doing. Growing up in Louisiana surrounded by mimosa trees, magnolia trees, and pine trees, with the needles all over the floor in that lush Louisiana humidity, and all your senses fired up from the smells of those beautiful plants.
We had a little farm and some sheep. We had this Bodark tree, a sage orange tree. They’re so rad because their limbs grow out from the trunk kind of horizontally, and you can lie down on the limbs. The green leaves growing from the top would come all the way down to the ground. So you had to crawl up and under it, but once you were inside, you were in a spherical canopy of green, a kind of bubble. But there was space to move around, almost like there were rooms, because of the low limbs separating the space. For an eight year old kid, crawling up in there and being there by yourself, it was magical, like The Secret Garden or Narnia.
(WATCH): Julianna Performing "Cloudbank" In NYC
BARWICK (cntd): I can create anywhere, but the environment definitely impacts it in ways I may not fully understand. It’s kind of interesting to think about. Music has taken me to lots of places on Earth: to the westernmost point of Europe in Portugal, which was once believed to be the literal edge of the Earth. To Carnegie Hall working with The Flaming Lips. To the Azores, that tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. To the Massachusetts wilderness working with Doug Aitken on his nomadic hot air balloon concerts, and to the Arizona desert where I’ve performed at Arcosanti.
(WATCH): Julianna Performing At The Glass House In New Canaan, Connecticut + Arcosanti, Arizona
BARWICH (cntd): I would have loved to have been there for your Antarctica footage. I personally have a deep connection with different moments I’ve had in nature. I think I get that from my mom. She has this sense of wonder and has always cherished all things beautiful in the world.
ELKINS: You grew up immersed in sacred choral music. Who were some of your inspirations? And does sacred music from other cultures inspire you?
BARWICK: I love African voices, gospel music. And the women’s choirs of Bulgaria.
ELKINS: Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares! I love those records. They’re otherworldly.
(LISTEN): The Mysterious Voices Of Bulgaria
BARWICK: Absolutely. But we have to start with my mom. My mom is an amazing singer, and she sings all the time, like I do. When she was pregnant with me, I could hear her singing through her pregnancy. Our church congregation would sing together acapella. And to me the auditoriums always made it sound so reverberant. So three times a week I’m being exposed to harmonies, rounds, all of those kinds of things. And those hymns!
ELKINS: I love that you can hear the impact of all of this on your music, without it being tied to any particular religious tradition lyrically. I think that enables a lot of people who maybe never had that kind of experience growing up to have an entry point into it later in life. And it’s enabled you to create some really unique musical collaborations with people from radically different musical backgrounds, like Ikue Mori.
BARWICK: That was one of my most favorite projects I’ve ever been a part of. We improvised together at White Columns in New York and they had a lathe in the room where Ikue and I were recording, so it was cut directly to record as we performed it. It was pretty amazing.
Ikue Mori: "Labyrinth" and "One Hundred Aspects Of The Moon"
(LISTEN): Julianna Barwick & Ikue Mori, "Rain And Shine At The Lotus Pond"
ELKINS: Wow! I had a chance to spend some time with Ikue in the studio way back in 2002, when she and electric harpist Zeena Parkins were making their first Phantom Orchard record.
[More on the Phantom Orchard sessions here: https://www.steveelkins.net/Interviews/On-Music/Phantom-Orchard/]
Are you familiar with Zeena?
BARWICK: Yeah, didn’t Zeena work with Björk?
ELKINS: Yes, she was Björk’s harpist and had just come back from the Vespertine tour. I already loved Ikue's work, but the collision of your ethereal vocals with Ikue's electronics is what initially drew me to your music: the unique hybrids you were creating.
Now it seems like you’re incorporating more electronics into your own music as time goes on. Last year, I worked a bit with Madame Gandhi and Sofia Hultquist (Drum and Lace). Both mentioned you DJ’d the after party of Suzanne Ciani’s recent Quadraphonic performance in Los Angeles. She’s definitely one of the great pioneers of electronic music and I’m curious if her work has inspired you in any way.
Suzanne Ciani: Buchla Concerts (1975)
BARWICK: Suzanne has definitely inspired me. She’s goals for me. Just an absolutely incredible woman. I had met her before at Moog Fest 2016. She said, "I watched you perform earlier, and thought you did a great job with the Moog Mother 32," and I said “oh my god!!!” So I was asked to DJ her after party at the Ace Hotel and interview her. She's awe-inspiring, someone who has dedicated so much time to embracing and mastering the maverick style of an instrument like the Buchla, carrying a giant bag of cables around the country to play shows. She’s in her 70s now, and has a house that overlooks the ocean. So she’s basically exactly who I want to be when I’m in my 70s.
[A Conversation Between Suzanne Ciani and Julianna Barwick: https://blog.acehotel.com/post/181248535708/a-conversation-between-suzanne-ciani-julianna]
ELKINS: Something that really stuck out to me in your conversation with Suzanne is when she says: "I think the big problem with being a female composer is that we don’t have any role models. There certainly have been a lot of women composers, but we just don’t know about them....I played at Royal Albert Hall this year as part of a program about women pioneers, and they premiered a symphony by Daphne Oram that she wrote in 1943. I cried! It was so beautiful! It just never saw the light of day."
Daphne Oram and her Oramics Machine
ELKINS (cntd): What hits me in the gut about this is that so much of electronic music was pioneered by women. Daphne Oram was experimenting with it way back in the 1940s, eventually creating the Oramics machine which translated drawings on film strips directly into sound. You can look even further back to Clara Rockmore's pioneering work with the theremin in the 1920s.
Clara Rockmore Playing The Theremin
(WATCH): Clara Rockmore Performing "The Swan" By Saint-Saëns On Theramin
Éliane Radigue
ELKINS (cntd): So many women were creating their own electronic musical universes ahead of what was happening in "established" music: Delia Derbyshire, Wendy Carlos, Charlotte “Bebe” Barron, Annette Peacock, Eliane Radigue, Laurie Anderson, and Pauline Oliveros (whose music I also used in "Echoes of the Invisible"). I mean this is just a short list. Not to mention one of my favorites, Laurie Spiegel.
(WATCH): A Short Film About Laurie Spiegel, "Little Doorways To Paths Not Yet Taken"
BARWICK: A few I love are Grouper, Vorhees, Mary Lattimore, Marie Davidson, Puce Mary, Malibu, and so many more.
(WATCH): Grouper, "I'm Clean Now"
(WATCH): Puce Mary, Live In Mexico City
(WATCH): Mary Lattimore, "Hello From The Edge Of The Earth"
Top Left To Bottom Right: Grouper, Marie Davidson, Puce Mary, Mary Lattimore, Vorhees, Malibu
ELKINS: Are you optimistic about the increasing use of Artificial Intelligence in music, and do you have any more plans to work with it further?
BARWICK: There are no plans right now, but now that I have that experience under my belt, I’ve thought about how AI could be incorporated into live shows and future projects. The possibilities are literally limitless. One thing I enjoyed about the project is kind of debunking this “AI is evil” thing, or that it’s like Big Brother. Because most people just think about it in terms of facial recognition and all this kind of intrusive, violating stuff that’s happening in our world today.
(WATCH): "Sight Machine": Trevor Paglen and Kronos Quartet
ELKINS: You’ve got me thinking about how Trevor Paglen used AI with Kronos Quartet. [See video above]. And David Cope’s work using AI to create new music by dead composers.
[Steve Elkins Interviews David Cope: https://www.steveelkins.net/Interviews/On-Music/David-Cope/]
BARWICK: This literally was just using AI to recognize objects, or brightness, or darkness, or writing a program that triggered sounds I wrote as a composer. I’m sure that there will be plenty of lame ways it will be used, and then there’ll be some really cool things that’ll come in time from this. But to know that what’s happening in the lobby score is happening in real time, is just a really unique way of listening to the world.
(WATCH): Julianna Barwick, Live In Austin, Texas
For more on the music of ECHOES OF THE INVISIBLE: https://www.steveelkins.net/Interviews/On-Making-ECHOES-OF-THE-INVISIBLE/The-Music/