'Tragedy' and 'Loud City Song' are both inspired by stories from the past.
Julia Holter
I don't consider myself supremely talented, but I really like to try things and sift through it and see what mess I made.
The classic problem in a relationship is a person trying to control the other person. People just want to conquer somebody.
It's so hard to know where you belong, ever. You have to be yourself and let yourself fall wherever you fall.
I just always make honest music. I just always kinda do what I wanna do.
No one recognises me on the street, ever.
David Bowie - I definitely knew some of his music as a teenager, but I didn't actually listen to his music as much until I was in my 20s.
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.
Green tea is my main source of caffeine, so I drink it every day.
I try to ignore people's opinions about my music - you don't want to hold yourself back because of that stuff.
Putting my audience to sleep isn't what I'm going for.
I see myself as a songwriter and a poet.
I thought I was gonna get a doctorate in composition or be a composer and be at a university for the rest of my life, mostly because my parents are academics, and that was the logical thing to do.
I prefer to work with mystery, but that doesn't work well in an academic environment. They want you to analyze what you're doing, which is toxic to the creative process for people like me.
I do develop characters for songs, and I think of everything as storytelling, in a way. But I don't plan out what they're going to sound like. I just sing over what I've done.
The Beatles, even Radiohead, all of my favorite stuff I'd play on the piano. But it was all very secret - for me, for fun. I wasn't going to record myself playing those songs, and it never occurred to me to write a song of my own.
There's a lot psychologically going on in boxing... I think I relate to some of it. I have a respect for it. It's like performing, but it's also this crazy, self-destructive thing.
I often find that I like the vibe of not having technology around me.
I think what's interesting in L.A. is that there's a lot of variety because L.A. is very spread out. I think there is a lot I don't know about, to be completely honest. It's a very mysterious town.
'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.
I was pretty scared of the idea as a younger person of being a musician on the road. It didn't occur to me as a possibility.
Amidst all the internal and external babble we experience daily, it's hard to find one's foundation.
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 started classical piano when I was eight, but I wasn't a virtuoso. I just really liked it.
I don't thrive in a school or academic environment, I found out. I thrive better in the world outside the small academy because I find it hard to explain what I'm doing.
I started playing piano when I was eight, and I went on to study piano in school, so I have a background in classical piano and studied composition in school. Writing music came later.
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.
If I'm kind of sad or depressed, it doesn't necessarily help me to write a song about exactly what I'm depressed about.
I think my music is experimental, playful, challenging, focused, fun. I don't want it to be thought of as trying to appeal to a certain type of person or being very cerebral.
I am very interested in the human voice and how we use it, especially when we aren't thinking, like the kind of stuff Robert Ashley was interested in.
I played cello on my early recordings, but that doesn't mean I'm a cellist, you know?
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.
What was special about Leonard Cohen's work was its calm mystery.
'Maxim's' was supposed to be on 'Ekstasis,' but it was very much in its own world.
I don't use the harpsichord because it evokes a past time period: I use it because I like the sound.
One of the struggles that I have with classical music is the way one thinks about a recapitulation. There's always this idea of themes, and I have trouble with that.
I grew up watching 'Gigi.' My grandmother had it, and I watched it there.
I think of each record as different and not having very much in common with what went before or what comes next.
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.
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 love '80s beats; everyone does.
You don't have to know about 'Hippolytus' to listen to 'Tragedy.'
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.
I'm inspired by nonmusical things a lot, whether it's a film or a book or whatever.
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.
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.
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.
One thing that's really important to me in my music is mystery.
I did study with Anne Carson briefly in Michigan. She taught there, and that's where I first encountered her, in her class.
I like mantras and repeating things, like in pop music, where you repeat a line over and over again. It's just so beautiful.
