Closing your eyes: A moment alone with Julia Holter’s Something in the Room She Moves

For the grand majority of us, listening to music is as easy as opening up your phone, connecting to your various bluetooth devices for proper amplification, and choosing a song. Everything in the world, everything ever recorded, is accessible at your fingertips. But what happens when that’s taken away? Is it stupid to willingly do so? Is it backwards? Or is it perhaps freeing?

I was asked by my housemate recently: “do you ever actually listen to music?” “Actually,” here, meant to refer to the most superior method, by his own metrics, of music consumption. His technique consists of putting on a record, turning off the lights, closing his eyes, laying down, and listening to an album fully through. He often fantasizes about a space in which we all share in this experience together, each choosing an album for the others to listen to. My housemate upholds this to be the most genuine way to listen to music, behind, of course, live music, which is something easier and easier to avoid in this day and age. The entire process becomes something religious, something magical, something vitally important. I think there is a lot of merit here, of adding ritual back into our lives, of allowing ourselves to slow down–even come to a complete halt–to engage in the absolutely fascinating myth that is music. Especially poignant to me is how this experience can be done both alone and with others. This deep engagement with recorded music–listening to an album top to bottom, as the artist intended–is not only a way to further one’s own relationship with music, but also a way to interact and share that specific experience with others.

I have yet to join this proper album-listening circle that my housemate has described. There is a lot of time-commitment, as well as a bit of vulnerability, that has kept it from taking place. What album would I choose? What album is so perfect, beginning to end, that I could share it in complete darkness to a group of friends? I have also yet to destroy my phone, or listen to music solely on vinyl or CD. I have been, however, closing my eyes more. Whether emotion, time, or place prompts it, I will take any opportunity I can to simply sit with music.

Earlier this week, waiting for a difficult conversation to commence with a friend, I sat and listened to an album that reminded me of someone else entirely. It was a cool night outside, but I had been walking–sometimes jumping, sometimes running–so my body was sufficiently warm. In fact, my cheeks were flushed hot and my heart pumped audibly in my chest. It was at times difficult to decipher what in my body was created by the outside weather conditions, previous exercise, or emotional anticipation I felt for the soon-to-be reconciliation. I lay down on a bench, expecting to close my eyes, but instead I looked up at the stars and felt my heart pound along to the light percussion that guides “These Morning” by Julia Holter. “Just lie to me, just lie to me, just lie to me” repeated over and over, for what felt like infinity. A keyboard: sometimes simple, sometimes light as a feather, prompting, questioning; a trumpet: distant, muffled, but piercing; a bass: bending and sliding, holding me, laying me down softly, calming my breath; and her voice: trance-like, breathing out a lullaby. A minute and a half into the song–each instrument perfectly in conversation, taking turns with the melody–there is a sudden burst of energy that just about takes my breath away, somehow exactly matching the heat in my face and the decibel of my heart. A breathy whisper–is it counting, is it chanting?–rises and falls in the background, like something bubbling just beneath the surface. A moment of silence washes over me as the music dies away, leaving me alone with the intense emotion in my body–anticipation, excitement, and anxiety all trying to force their way out of my chest–making me sit with it. “A mile is so wide // My days in night chill // We escape here in anonymous ice fall too long.” But just as quickly as it disappeared, the music returned, a crashing wave, picking me up and settling me down, preparing me for what I had been putting off. Later that night, long after my conversation was over and the feeling it caused was gone, I shared the scene–because it felt like a scene, a story experienced by someone else, something I simply witnessed–to the person of whom it reminded me. This intimate moment, me and the song and the stars, still somehow became a vessel for outside connection. What power music holds.

These moments have become more frequent. When I get into the habit of listening to music, I know I’ve done something wrong. Only when I let music catch me off guard, pull the rug out from beneath my feet, question where I am, who I am, and why I do what I do, am I consuming it “correctly.” In an era where convenience is key and anything I want is readily available, I revel in the opportunity to be inconvenienced. I take every chance I can to experience the world around me, and the soundtrack that accompanies it. So, I can’t wait to continue to unfold this relationship with music, revealing its nuances, allowing it to grow.

Article by Peri Zoe Yildirim-Stanley