I've never felt at home anywhere.
— Julia Holter
I usually like to hide my vocals behind the music. I don't like to hide them consciously, but I have a tendency to prefer the vocal at the same level as everything else and put lots of reverb on it.
Most records are usually not united by one specific story, but that seems to be something that I like and that I find easy to do.
I basically just write stream of consciousness to a certain extent. I let the song kind of go where it wants to go.
I did study with Anne Carson briefly in Michigan. She taught there, and that's where I first encountered her, in her class.
I do have a big problem with the idea of music as a form of communication unless it's political - and that's where it's tricky because a lot of music is political, even if it's not overtly so. But my music isn't that; it's about a feeling.
The classic problem in a relationship is a person trying to control the other person. People just want to conquer somebody.
I don't like to talk too much about my music; I like people to just experience it and not worry what I have to say.
I'm inspired by nonmusical things a lot, whether it's a film or a book or whatever.
I love '80s beats; everyone does.
When I was a kid, I had a xylophone, and I thought that was the instrument I wanted to play. I didn't realize it was a toy.
I'm happy that I worked alone on 'Tragedy,' but it's obvious that I was trying to create something much bigger than I could do on my own.
It's nice to work with people who know how to mic drums right and how to record properly. But there's something to be said for doing it yourself.
If I feel like I'm myself, then I'm very uncomfortable.
It's hard for me to get shows in the U.S. It's that simple. I don't know what that means. I think it means there's not as much support here for my music?
I'm not an unhappy person - I'm just an anxious person. It runs in the family.
'Have You in My Wilderness,' the title track, is about the idea of possessing a person, or saying, 'You're mine; you're in my world now.' I was drawn to that as an idea less from my own experience than from listening to music written by men that was kind of male gaze-y.
One thing that's really important to me in my music is mystery.
I'm not, like, always focused; I'm very unfocused. I'm reading, and then I'm looking at my phone, and then I'm on the Internet.
Amidst all the internal and external babble we experience daily, it's hard to find one's foundation.
You can have an Internet presence, but it doesn't mean anyone has any idea who you are or what you look like. Which is great.
One thing I do like about L.A. is the fact that you can be - whether you're famous or it's just a matter of, like, seeing people you know all the time on the street, you can be pretty anonymous and walk around and, like, not run into people, because it's such a big city and because a lot of people drive.
What was special about Leonard Cohen's work was its calm mystery.
I often find that I like the vibe of not having technology around me.
I think of each record as different and not having very much in common with what went before or what comes next.
I started classical piano when I was eight, but I wasn't a virtuoso. I just really liked it.
In high school, I would secretly play Joni Mitchell songs all the time. That's when I started singing and playing at the same time, and I got really into doing that.
All I ever know is what I want to do next.
Musical themes developing is a lot of what classical music is based on, and exposition and recapitulation - these kinds of things I find oppressive.
I like mantras and repeating things, like in pop music, where you repeat a line over and over again. It's just so beautiful.
Green tea is my main source of caffeine, so I drink it every day.
It's so hard to know where you belong, ever. You have to be yourself and let yourself fall wherever you fall.
There's definitely been a focus on the literary aspects of my music, and I always get a little cringey because I don't feel like I'm particularly literary. There's a sort of academic label that's put on me that seems inaccurate.
No one recognises me on the street, ever.
You don't have to know about 'Hippolytus' to listen to 'Tragedy.'
I see myself as a songwriter and a poet.
I usually work in a room which is totally cluttered with my mess, and there's stuff everywhere, and it's kind of chaotic because I am a very messy person. I could totally write in a pristine environment, but it would mean I would have to be at someone else's house.
I grew up watching 'Gigi.' My grandmother had it, and I watched it there.
I played cello on my early recordings, but that doesn't mean I'm a cellist, you know?
