I tend to love 2 types of music (i) really beautiful music (ii) really un-beautiful music. I don’t play in the no-mans land between them and prefer the extremes of the beauty continuum. There is no doubt that Julie Byrne’s ‘The Greater Wings’ sits at the very beautiful end of the beautiful music spectrum.
I have for some time loved the niche, sub-sub-genres of ‘folk music that bleeds into ambience’ and also ‘ambience that bleeds into folk music.’ I would listen to pretty much anything that Grouper or Mutual Benefit recorded. Julie Byrne sits somewhere in this space and occupies a very special place in my heart and my ears for doing so. This is Julie’s 3rd album in a period of 9 years of releasing albums. She’s far from prolific and that’s ok with me. It’s been 6 years since the release of Not Even Happiness which I chose as Album of the Month and introduced you guys too. That album is my calm place. It’s a constant in my life. I ‘use’ that album as much as listen to it, by which I mean that it plays a role in my life more than music. God that sounds wanky but also, it’s true so fuck it.
You won’t get many words into a review for ‘The Greater Wings’ without learning that it was completed in heartbreaking circumstances. In June 2021, Eric Littmann, Bryne’s long time collaborator, friend and I believe former partner passed away. He was 31. Apparently Littmann was as responsible for the beauty of ‘Not even happiness’ as Byrne was, adding production and synth credits to the album. He’s untimely passing came half way through recording ‘On Greater Wings’. It feels like he was a major influence in the creation of the album but also that he influenced the nuance with which the album was completed after his passing.
I read a ‘throw-away’ Instagram post the other day that introduced me to the concept of ‘Glimmers’ and explain them as the opposite of triggers. Its the things that add beauty and peace into your world. The idea being that (as per triggers) the more you look for them, the more you find them. ‘The Greater Wings’ is 39 minutes of glimmers, glimmers born of the most heartbreaking circumstances.
I read about this album before I had the chance to listen to it. I knew the circumstances in which it was recorded and this probably set my initial expectations. But it’s perhaps not what you think it is. At least, not unless you want it to be. I think there are 2 ways to listen to this album. You can allow this album to infuse you with glimmers and with loveliness by allowing yourself to be caught up in its current. You can allow it to pull you along with it. Or, you can make a deliberate, conscious decision to immerse yourself in it. If you do the latter, it can be emotionally overwhelming, it could be the wrong time to listen to this album like this. I do however think that if you chose the first option, you are not missing out on the depth or the importance of this album. I am not suggesting you make it background music. I am not sure it could ever be that. It still radiates beauty and connection … and glimmers.
If you’re new to Julie Byrne, her music sits somewhere in that Indie / Folk space. She’s always experimented with Synths and ambience that adds something hauntingly affecting to her music. This album is this x10. It’s 39 minutes, 10 tracks. Every note, sound and feeling is where it is as a deliberate act of placement. Bryne talks about the track sequencing being the result of very specific thinking. She talks about the presentation of tracks being ‘the purest form’ of the music on this album. She also talks about Side A and Side B. If I am honest, I was not convinced that I thought the sequencing was ‘right’ when I first heard it. The title track is a stunning piece of music but I was not sure if it felt right to start the album. However, having lived with this album for weeks, I get it. I totally understand what she means.
One thing you won’t hear on this album is percussion. The closest you get is the percussive thrum of a finger picked guitar. On some tracks this is more definable than others, ‘Portrait of a Clear Day’ being a great example. The piano drives other tracks forward but mostly we’re taking about very calm, ambient, beatless tracks.
Lyrically, this album is stunning. Again, it can be overwhelming, but there is more than one way to read this music and it’s lyrics. I encourage anyone to ‘read’ these lyrics as ‘openly’ as they can do. For me, I get more from them if I do this, to concentrate on the beauty.
I am not going to do a track by track on this one. I don’t think it’s fitting. Every track has a critical place on this album and I love each and every one for that place. The instrumental ‘Summers End’ included. This is a palette cleansing couple of minutes of ambience that closes ‘Side A’ and prepares the listener for ‘Side B’. To follow ‘Summers Glass’ (which Byrne describes as the beating heart of the album) with ‘Summers End’ feels a very natural and rewarding decision. I understand that the title ‘Summers End’ refers to a song that Littmann wrote for Byrne when they first met.
This is so clearly 2023 Top 5 album material for me. This is everything that I love about music. I hope you find something you love in it. I hope it doesn’t overwhelm you, perhaps only when you want it to. It has at times overwhelmed me. It has made me think and question a lot of things.
It has kept me coming back to a single question.
Could anybody ever expect to influence anything as beautiful as this after they pass on?
thisisnothappening.net 