(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)
Julie Byrne, a singer-songwriter from upstate New York, debuted with
Rooms With Walls and Windows (2014).
Not Even Happiness (Ba Da Bing, 2017), which began her collaboration with
producer and synth-man Eric Littmann,
found an elegant balance between
folk music and new-age music.
Natural Blue, for example, sounds like an odd hybrid of Enya and Donovan.
The highlight is the
stately dream-pop caressed by dejected synths I Live Now as a Singer,
a rare case of intimate music that seem to come from another dimension.
Make it longer, and it could be a Jane Siberry
tour de force.
On the other hand, Sleepwalker boast enough energy to sound like a
cover of some Leo Kottke country sonata,
and the pastoral singalong Melting Grid sounds like a
Fairport Convention leftover.
Julie Byrne's soft touching voice is even more effective on
The Greater Wings (2023), shelved in 2021 after the untimely death of
producer and lover Littmann and finally completed two years later.
The opening duo,
The Greater Wings and especially Portrait of a Clear Day, are remarkable
specimen of her reflective, melancholic, light like a feather and almost spiritual
chamber folk, enhanced with violins that evoke gentle winds.
Moonless
The cryptic instrumental Summer's End contrasts dire organ-like chords (worthy of a requiem) with pastoral harp and chimes.
Summer Glass increases the doses of electronic drones and fluttering synth effects, and the
angelic Lightning Comes Up From the Ground is drenched in ambient drones.
Unfortunately the material is uneven and the magic of the first two songs gets
quickly dilapidated in more generic elegies.
