One of my favourite at-home memories from the past few months is the time when my family performed an accidental, improvised, and private concert.
In our bathroom.
I was getting our two kids, aged 5 and 2, ready for bed. They were brushing their teeth and I was brushing along because, you know, modelling and all that. Then my wife came in to join us, sporting her fancy new electric toothbrush.
As soon as she turned it on, the kids were transfixed by its mid-range hum. For a moment, they gazed at their mother’s reflection in the bathroom mirror, small bits of toothpaste froth beginning to drip from the corners of their mouths.
Then they started humming along.
We all did. At first in unison with the toothbrush, and then diverging into our own harmonies (or dissonances) until the brief fluoride chant ended, just as spontaneously as it had begun. It was a weird, wonderful moment, and I think that Julianna Barwick would have approved.
Barwick’s childhood was spent experimenting with the sound of her own voice; echoes in parking garages, hums in hollowed-out trees, harmonies with the sounds around her.
Now signed to the Ninja Tune label, that obsession with her voice has produced several albums of looped and layered vocals, similar in their ethereal ambience to the song we featured in week 122. Barwick’s work is mesmerizing, and alternates between sounding very much of this world, and very much not.
Her new album, preceded by this track, is due out July 10.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. The massive space implied by the endless reverb.
2. The way the recurring melodic phrase doesn’t resolve, leaving the listener floating. It makes you feel like you’ve fallen asleep listening to Simon & Garfunkel.
3. The robotic synth at 1.40 fills out the bass, and provides a sharp contrast to the layers of human voices. It also (and maybe this is just me) sounds like the world’s biggest electric toothbrush.
Recommended listening activity:
Figuring out which appliance in your house is in the same key as the song.