Julia Holter

Julia Shammas Holter (born December 18, 1984) is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, composer, artist, and academic, based in Los Angeles. Her work has received critical acclaim and incorporates elements of Art pop, Chamber pop, baroque pop and Ambient music. Following three independent album productions, Holter released Tragedy as her first official studio album in 2011. Ekstasis followed in 2012. After signing with Domino Records in 2013, she released the albums Loud City Song (2013), Have You in My Wilderness (2015), the live-in-the-studio album In the Same Room (2017) and the double album Aviary (2018).

Holter composed the score for the 2020 film Never Rarely Sometimes Always and released Behind the Wallpaper (2023) in collaboration with Spektral Quartet and Alex Temple. Her most recent studio album is Something in the Room She Moves, released in 2024.

Holter has also collaborated with other musicians, including Nite Jewel, Laurel Halo, Ariel Pink, Ducktails, Linda Perhacs, Michael Pisaro, and Jean-Michel Jarre.

Biography
Holter was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. At age six her family moved to Los Angeles, where she later attended the Alexander Hamilton High School. She studied music at University of Michigan for four years, graduating with a degree in composition. After seeing Michael Pisaro perform an avant-garde composition in Michigan, she was inspired to study with him at CalArts, where she graduated from another composition program. Holter contributed songs to multiple compilation albums in 2008. In 2010, she began playing with Linda Perhacs' band and released a CD-R titled Celebration and a collection of live recordings.

Following three independently produced albums – Phaedra Runs to Russia (2007), Cookbook (2008), and Celebration (2010), Holter's official debut album, Tragedy, was released in August 2011 on Leaving Records. Inspired by Euripides' Greek play Hippolytus, the album received generally favorable reviews and was named one of NPR's "Best Outer Sound Albums of 2011".

Holter released her second album, Ekstasis, in March 2012 on the RVNG Intl. label. The album drew comparisons to works by such artists as Laurie Anderson, Julianna Barwick, Kate Bush, Joanna Newsom, Grouper, and Stereolab, and received many positive reviews. Ekstasis reviews: Holter spent three years making the album, whose title comes from the Greek word meaning "outside of oneself." The music video for album track "Moni Mon Amie", directed by Yelena Zhelezov, was also released in March.
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In addition to collaborating with other California-based musicians like Nite Jewel (Ramona Gonzalez), Holter released her third album, Loud City Song, in August 2013 on Domino Records. It was universally acclaimed by critics and Unlike her preceding albums, which were recorded mostly alone in her bedroom, Holter recorded Loud City Song  with an ensemble of musicians.

In 2015, Holter released the album Have You in My Wilderness, which was acclaimed by critics and became her most successful charting release to date. She also contributed to Ducktails' fifth studio album, St. Catherine, with her bandmates Chris Votek and Andrew Tholl.

Holter collaborated with Jean-Michel Jarre on a song for the second part of the Electronica double album, released on July 18, 2016.

In November 2016, she curated her own program during the tenth-anniversary edition of Le Guess Who? Festival in Utrecht. This program included performances by Laurel Halo, Josephine Foster, Maya Dunietz, Jessica Moss and other artists.

In September 2017, she performed a world premier of her scoring of the 1928 silent French film The Passion of Joan of Arc on September 29 at the FIGat7th in downtown Los Angeles.

In September 2018, Holter announced her fifth commercially released album, Aviary, and released the lead single "I Shall Love 2". She followed it with another single, "Words I Heard", before the album's release on October 26. The record was praised for its scope and ambition and appeared on multiple year end lists for the best albums of 2018.

In 2021, Holter was appointed the Johnston-Fix Professor of the Practice in Songwriting; Visiting Assistant Professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles.

On January 9, 2024, Holter announced her sixth studio album, Something in the Room She Moves, which was released to critical acclaim on March 22 by Domino. In June 2024, Holter appeared throughout her partner and longtime bandmate Tashi Wada's studio album, What Is Not Strange?.

Style
The Guardian wrote that "Holter's vocal register [...] faintly recalls Siouxsie Sioux or Nico". Under the Radar similarly compared her to other female artists saying; "Holter is Siouxsie Sioux meets Kate Bush, with a matchstick intensity, relighting her own wick by the conversation in her voice, her diaphragm shifting between instruments".

Personal life
Holter was previously in a relationship with former Real Estate guitarist and Ducktails frontman Matt Mondanile. In 2015, she contributed to his Ducktails album, St. Catherine. In the wake of sexual misconduct allegations against Mondanile, Holter divulged that Mondanile was "emotionally abusive to the point where I had to have a lawyer intervene and was afraid for my life."

Holter is married to musician Tashi Wada, son of the sound artist Yoshi Wada. They have been in a relationship since 2015, and they have a daughter together who was born during the COVID-19 pandemic. Holter and Wada first met in 2007 when they both played in a harmonium ensemble organized by their friend James. Holter collaborated with Wada on his 2024 studio album, What Is Not Strange?.

Singles

 * "Maria" (2011)
 * "Marienbad" (2012)
 * "In the Same Room" (2012)
 * "Goddess Eyes" (2012)
 * "World" (2013)
 * "In The Green Wild" (2013)
 * "Maxims I" (2013)
 * "Don't Make Me Over" (2014)
 * "Feel You" (2015)
 * "Sea Calls Me Home" (2015)
 * "Condemnation", with Romona Gonzalez and Nedelle Torissi (2017)
 * "I Shall Love 2" (2018)
 * "Words I Heard" (2018)
 * "So Humble the Afternoon" (2018)
 * "Les Jeux to You - Edit" (2019)
 * "Gold Dust Woman" (2020)
 * "Heloise", with Harper Simon and Meditations On Crime, feat. Geologist (2022)
 * "Sun Girl" (2023)

Remixes by Julia Holter

 * "Strange Town" by Buzzy Lee (2021)