JULIANNA BARWICK - Tragic Magic

A choral singing teacher and a harpist meet in an enchanted forest… It sounds like the opening of a Celtic fairy tale, but it's actually the very story behind "Tragic Magic" – well, minus the enchanted forest, though that's still present on the album cover. The Brooklyn-based vocal teacher and the Los Angeles harpist have long crossed paths through festivals, concerts and collaborations, and the connection between the two was strong from the start, so much so that a collaborative album always felt like a natural destiny.

In this fairy-tale forest, at the crossroads of ambient, chamber folk and new age, we find, alongside the harp, a synth as well. Each instrument sits on a rock, facing the other. These are the two ingredients the elfin musicians have chosen to paint the backdrops against which Barwick's ethereal, floating voice can roam free.

With its delicate harp embroidery, "Perpetual Adoration" invites us to venture into the forest. Here, guiding us, is Julianna's siren-like voice, leading us toward a synthetic bath of light, as if filtered by synthesizers through the dense foliage of the trees. We're now at the heart of the enchantment when "The Four Sleeping Princesses" raises the tension with a nervous, hypnotic harp figure, along with synth vibrations that feel more sinister and mysterious, almost dark.

While "Haze With No Haze" leans on folk-inflected harp patterns and increasingly medieval-flavored contributions from Barwick, by the time we reach "Stardust" we witness what feels like a role reversal. Now it's the keyboards taking the lead, trailing comet tails through a nocturnal setting that, enriched with percussion and guitars, we might call post-rock. The two musicians then deliver a long farewell titled "Melted Moon", roughly eight and a half minutes of gentle piano melodies, harp ticking and dream-pop sighs.

No point beating around the bush: one of the most beguiling moments on "Tragic Magic" is a cover. A rendition of Vangelis's "Rachel's Song" (from the "Blade Runner" soundtrack) that feels even more human, faithful to the track's synthetic origins yet tinged with acoustic warmth. That's fitting for an album that stands out less for the quality of its compositions – excellent, though rarely on par with either musician's solo work (or at least not with Lattimore's) – and more for the chemistry between the two. A chemistry that finds its ultimate expression in a song close to both musicians' hearts.

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20/01/2026