Materia [CD]

Julia Holter always knew that there were many forms her song “Materia” could take. The tune’s dynamic Hildegard von Bingen-inspired melody and dense modal chords stood on their own without a complex arrangement on her wondrous 2024 album Something in the Room She Moves, but she felt a lingering desire to expand the texture and stretch out the harmony.

But on the new Materia, a kind of companion LP to Something, Holter has realized not one but two distinct versions of the song. “Materia 2” is a hallucinatory dream of drum machines, fretless bass, and clarinet, Holter’s voice spiraling through ether alongside that of Jessika Kenney. And on “Materia 3,” intended as a hidden bonus track in an homage to the CD era of her youth, Holter literally slows down the take from Something. The change not only emphasizes the unpredictable glory of the harmonies within but also reiterates the song’s emotional sophistication, the sense that it’s about learning how to live.

Materia is only seven tracks long, but Holter works in nearly that many modes here. There are two astounding improvisations, one where she builds a one-person ensemble of drum machines and synth lines and another where she manipulates her voice until each word seems to contain another symphony. And yet another is built from a riff that came from a demo for Something, a demo that itself is one of Materia’s most spellbinding and emotional pieces, “My Twin.” These seven songs show that Holter is among her generation’s most fluid writers of art-pop, moving among ideas and idioms with true exploratory aplomb. Materia is a kind of playground for Holter, where each distinct scene steadily coheres into a moving whole.