Healing Is A Miracle

ヴォイス・アンビエントの魔術師にして、レディオヘッド、シガー・ロスからボン・イヴェールまで虜にするプロデューサー/SSWジュリアナ・バーウィックがアルバム『Healing IsA Miracle』をリリース。

「例えば手を切ってしまったとき、傷が痛々しくても、2週間後には見た目では何もなかったかのようになってしまう……これって何だかすごいことでしょう?」と本人が語る通り、自然治癒能力にインスパイアされ、すべては自身の感性に従った結果、どこに行き着くのかという制作プロセスを踏むことをテーマに掲げ、独特な瞑想状態はそのままに神秘的な高揚感につつまれる先行曲「Inspirit」を含む全8曲を収録。
また本作は、アイスランドのレイキャビクでレコーディングされた2013年のアルバム『Nepenthe』をきっかけに親交を温めてきたシガー・ロスのヨンシ―、共同来日公演を成功させた盟友メアリー・ラティモア、現在の活動拠点であるLAへの移住をきっかけに念願の共作となったビートメイカーのノサッジ・シングの3人がゲスト・アーティストとして参加しており、いずれも恍惚のコラボレーションへと昇華されている。
4年ぶり4作目となる今作はザ・シネマティック・オーケストラ、ボノボ、フローティング・ポインツを擁する移籍第1弾作品。

From album to album, Juliana Barwicks music is both consistently gorgeous and expressive of the subtlest change in her creative process. While Healing Is a Miracle is just as transporting as her previous work, it also reflects the shifts in her life when she made it. Not only had she moved to Los Angeles after 16 years in New York, but the vocal improvisations that became the albums foundations were the first music shed made for herself after years of commissioned projects. A feeling of reclaiming and recovery comes from within and without on Healing Is a Miracle. Barwick gets support from some longtime friends and new neighbors, and as always, shes a generous collaborator who fully melds her style with other artists. Considering how often Barwicks voice is described as angelic, it might seem too obvious to add harp to her music, but Mary Lattimores propulsive bass notes and glimmering high end on Oh, Memory are layered just as creatively and affectingly as Barwicks vocals. The husky textures of her breathing are echoed by Nosaj Things submerged synths and beats on Nod, perhaps the clearest homage to her new home base of L.A. On In Light, she duets with her dear friend Jonsi, another singer who can channel the infinite and still seem approachable. As their voices unite in luminous harmony while titanic beats anchor the song and fracture it into further radiant beams, it makes for one of Healing Is a Miracles brightest highlights. Jonsi and his partner Alex Somers (who produced 2013s Nepenthe) helped shape Healing Is a Miracles sound in a more indirect way: This is the first album Barwick made using the studio monitors the pair gave her as a birthday present. While studio monitors are standard gear for many recording artists, theyre a notable addition to Barwicks music. When the massive synth bass drops on the stunning opening invocation Inspirit, the feeling of awe it sparks fills the whole body. On songs such as this one, Healing Is a Miracle borrows the best of Wills intimacy, which felt like Barwick and her listeners were in the same room, and the choral majesty of Nepenthe, which transported listeners somewhere else entirely. Just as Nepenthe helped her grieve the loss of a family member, Healings therapeutic qualities are unmistakable on calming cathedrals of sound like Safe and the title track. However, healing also implies growth, and the album lives up to that aspect of its name with Flowers, where cascading echoes and pulsing synths provide a fascinating, surprisingly tense contrast to the serenity that dominates elsewhere. Barwick has always celebrated the sheer beauty of voices joining together and likely always will, but shes never done it exactly the same way twice. With Healing Is a Miracle, she once again manages to evolve and remain true to what has made her music special since the beginning. ~ Heather Phares