Quotes from Julia Holter

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.

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.

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.

'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.

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.

Musical themes developing is a lot of what classical music is based on, and exposition and recapitulation - these kinds of things I find oppressive.

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 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 try to not think too much about how people are receiving my music. And I'm not really famous enough that it's a problem.

I really write at home on my own, and the demos themselves are very similar to the final recordings in a lots of ways.

I played cello on my early recordings, but that doesn't mean I'm a cellist, you know?

I don't use the harpsichord because it evokes a past time period: I use it because I like the sound.

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 like mantras and repeating things, like in pop music, where you repeat a line over and over again. It's just so beautiful.

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.

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.

Amidst all the internal and external babble we experience daily, it's hard to find one's foundation.

I started writing music as a composer in school, in the classical tradition.

I don't know how well I work in traditions. I don't know if it's just the way I listened to music growing up and never having my foot in one particular world, and just wanting to do my own thing.

'Tragedy' and 'Loud City Song' are both inspired by stories from the past.

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.

To me, the process of art is very much a process of translation, of borrowing.

I don't write thinking directly about what I'm feeling, usually. I just let myself write whatever comes out without it necessarily being directly a translation of what I'm aware that I'm feeling, you know?