Photo by Camille Blake

Maybe it’s because this year has oversaturated our listening experiences with varying patterns of shoegaze synesthesia bleeding into one that when along comes a new single by ambient experimentalist, Julia Holter, you’re reminded of a different environment in which the senses can explore sound, light, and the energy of being. “Sun Girl”, Holter’s first solo offering in fives years, exits the cool chamber pop dwelling of 2018’s Aviary and into warmer climates and high places in this physical world which her compositions describe in dreams of golden yellow. “Sun maze, some girl / Outrun, dream day / Dream day, guess game / Guess game.” Her words parse together like pieces of one, blinkering an arrangement of string melt, plucked keys, and an electronic psychedelia as if caught between that space between REM and lucidity where the subconscious meets the awakened, feeling warm while out of body.

Julia Holter’s “Sun Girl” single is available now on Domino Recording Co.