Julia Holter

American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Julia Holter, born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and raised in Los Angeles, emerged in the early 2010s with music that blends art pop, indie, electronic music, and avant-garde compositional influences. The artist released her debut album, Tragedy, in 2011 on the Leaving Records label.

Ekstasis, her second album, was released in March 2012 on the RVNG Intl. label. The album increased the singer’s visibility, and her work came to be associated with artists who blend experimental pop, electronic music, and more atmospheric compositions, such as Kate Bush, Laurie Anderson, Stereolab, Julianna Barwick, Joanna Newsom, and Grouper.

In 2013, she released Loud City Song, an album loosely inspired by the world of Gigi, a novel by French writer Colette that was later adapted for the big screen. Two years later, she released Have You in My Wilderness, an album that brought her experimental sound closer to more traditional pop structures and became one of the most celebrated works of her career.

In 2017, Julia Holter released In the Same Room, an album recorded live in the studio in which she revisited songs from different periods of her discography. A new studio album arrived in 2018 with Aviary, an expansive record that reinforced the experimental nature of her music. After a hiatus of nearly six years, the singer returned in 2024 with Something in the Room She Moves, an album marked by fluid arrangements and a blend of improvisation, art pop, jazz, and electronic music.

In August 2026, she released Materia, a seven-track album conceived as a complement— or a sort of sequel — to Something in the Room She Moves. The album revisits ideas, recordings, and possibilities developed during and after the sessions for the 2024 album, while also featuring new compositions recorded with her band between tours.

Materia explores different paths starting from the song “Materia” itself, originally released on Something in the Room She Moves. On “Materia 2,” Holter transforms the composition with a drum machine, Devra Hoff’s fretless bass, and Chris Speed’s clarinet, while her vocals intertwine with those of experimental singer-songwriter Jessika Kenney.