The Fat Angel Sings

Julia Holter sang with her wonderful voice several songs from her new album “Have You In My Wilderness” at Tavastia Klubi, Helsinki. In the few times I’ve seen Julia Holter perform, her backup band iterations have been slight, but poignant. Touring behind 2012’s Ekstasis, she’d seemed to whittle her players down to empirical parts, attempting to key into and then draw out the intimacy of her experimentally-tinged chamber pop: drums, double bass, her standing behind her keyboard, typically churning out harpsichord sounds. Two albums later, and Holter is playing for much larger venues with a comparatively much larger band, behind a much more maximalist record, this year’s unexpectedly pop-centric “Have You In My Wilderness”. Devin Hoff on double bass is still a crucial piece of her lineup, as is Corey Fogel’s drums, but now she’s girthed out her stage sound with viola and back-up vocals, as well as, if you catch the right night, some sweet sax. And with that rosier, more robust arrangement, one might expect something brasher, something broader—something less in debt to her classical or avant-garde roots, readier than ever to embrace a larger audience. But no: she may seem happier, slightly less aloof, on stage, but even with more folks filling square footage, her live renditions are just as elemental as they’ve ever been, cutting to the marrow of her melodies and cutting out the headier production to which her albums have a tendency to attach themselves