| The Magic Place | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | February 21, 2011 | |||
| Recorded | 2010–2011 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 43:44 | |||
| Label | Asthmatic Kitty | |||
| Producer |
| |||
| Julianna Barwick chronology | ||||
| ||||
The Magic Place is the debut studio album by ambient artist Julianna Barwick. The album was released on February 21, 2011, by Asthmatic Kitty Records. [2] It peaked at number 4 on the Billboard New Age Albums chart. [3]
Barwick started working on her album in mid-2010 and in early 2011 the album was released by Asthmatic Kitty Records. The album contains elements of new-age and ambient music. Upon completion of the album, Barwick said:
"The Magic Place was a tree on our farm. It was in the back pasture. It was one tree that grew up, down and around. You had to crawl in and once you were inside, it was like there were different rooms, and you could actually lay in the branches. We named it 'The Magic Place' because it really was magical—especially for a kid... and that's how I feel about my life right now—without trying to sound too hippy dippy or cosmic, this year has definitely been a magical one." [2]
| Aggregate scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AnyDecentMusic? | 7.8/10 [4] |
| Metacritic | 82/100 [5] |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [6] |
| Drowned in Sound | 8/10 [7] |
| Fact | 4/5 [8] |
| The Irish Times | [9] |
| Mojo | [10] |
| MusicOMH |  [11] |
| Pitchfork | 8.5/10 [12] |
| PopMatters | 8/10 [13] |
| Slant Magazine | [14] |
| Uncut | [15] |
The Magic Place received enthusiastic reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 82, based on 18 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". [5] Luke Winkie of MusicOMH found that Barwick "is crafting gorgeously effecting sounds in a way that nobody has quite heard before, far beyond the snickering Enya comparisons or the reductive ties to Brian Eno's ambience... this isn't music for thinking or studying, this is just music for living". [11] AllMusic writer K. Ross Hoffman wrote that "her sound has a comfortingly homespun, unfussy quality, and a patient, uplifting serenity, that remain uniquely her own". [6] Mark Richardson of Pitchfork awarded the album the site's "Best New Music" designation and felt that it "stands above her earlier work in virtually every way". [12] Mojo praised it as "her most fully involved album, suffused with the warmth of fond memories and a deep, dream-like resonance", [10] while Uncut wrote: "The sense of naive wonder evident recalls the bewitching power of Sigur Rós." [15]
Arnold Pan of PopMatters wrote, "Try as you might to explain Julianna Barwick's incomparable, indescribable music, maybe it's best to let The Magic Place do all the talking, because the results speak for themselves". [13] BBC Music was positive on the album and wrote: "The Magic Place, splendidly, isolates the listener, cuts them off from the world around them". [16] In a mixed assessment, Slant Magazine 's Kevin Liedel instead found the album to be "a beautiful, ambiguous diversion better suited as a companion soundtrack to some experimental film or art installation than as the debut for a promising young singer". [14]
Pitchfork placed the album at number 24 on its list of the top 50 albums of 2011. [17] BBC Music ranked it at 19 of 25 in its own run down of the best albums of 2011. [18]
In 2016, Pitchfork placed the album at number 30 on its list of the 50 best ambient albums of all time. [19]
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Envelop" | 5:40 |
| 2. | "Keep Up the Good Work" | 4:48 |
| 3. | "The Magic Place" | 3:51 |
| 4. | "Cloak" | 4:05 |
| 5. | "White Flag" | 4:53 |
| 6. | "Vow" | 4:39 |
| 7. | "Bob in Your Gait" | 4:03 |
| 8. | "Prizewinning" | 6:43 |
| 9. | "Flown" | 5:04 |
| Total length: | 43:44 | |
| Chart (2011) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| US New Age Albums ( Billboard ) [3] | 4 |
Ambient music is a genre of music that emphasizes tone and atmosphere over traditional musical structure or rhythm. It is often "peaceful" sounding and lacks composition, beat, and/or structured melody. It uses textural layers of sound that can reward both passive and active listening and encourage a sense of calm or contemplation. The genre is said to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual", or "unobtrusive" quality. Nature soundscapes may be included, and the sounds of acoustic instruments such as the piano, strings and flute may be emulated through a synthesizer.
Sufjan Stevens is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He has released ten solo studio albums and multiple collaborative albums with other artists. Stevens has received Grammy and Academy Award nominations.
Illinois is a 2005 concept album by American singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens. His fifth studio album, it features songs referencing places, events, and persons related to the U.S. state of Illinois. Illinois is Stevens' second based on a U.S. state—part of a planned series of fifty that began with the 2003 album Michigan and that Stevens has since acknowledged was a joke. It was adapted into a musical, Illinoise, in 2023 and, after playing smaller venues, opened at the St. James Theatre on Broadway in April 2024.
Asthmatic Kitty Records is an American independent record label founded in 1999 by a community of musicians from Holland, Michigan led by Sufjan Stevens and his stepfather Lowell Brams. Some were Holland natives, and others had come to attend local colleges and universities. While the original Holland nucleus has dispersed across the country, the community has grown, with new artists and shared projects with other independent record labels. The Library Catalog Music Series, inaugurated in 2009, showcases instrumental music from a wide variety of musicians, with eighteen albums in print as of February 2013, and more scheduled for release. Asthmatic Kitty is now based in Lander, Wyoming, Atlanta, Georgia and Brooklyn, New York.
Rafter is the performing name of the American musician and producer Rafter Roberts. He also owns his own studio, Singing Serpent, in San Diego, California, United States.
Jason W. Chung, better known as Nosaj Thing, is an American artist, record producer, and DJ based in Los Angeles, California. He has produced tracks for Kendrick Lamar, Chance the Rapper, Kid Cudi, Tinashe, Toro Y Moi, serpentwithfeet, Kučka, Julianna Barwick, and is the founder of Timetable Records.
Here We Go Magic was an American indie rock band based in Brooklyn, New York. It was formed by core members Luke Temple, Michael Bloch and Peter Hale, in late 2008. The band signed to Western Vinyl in 2008, followed by the five-piece group's signing to Secretly Canadian in 2009.
Strange Weather, Isn't It? is the fourth album by dance-punk group !!!, released on August 24, 2010, on Warp Records. The album's first single, "AM/FM", was made available as a free download from the band's website and was released on limited edition clear vinyl on July 13, 2010.
The Age of Adz is the sixth studio album by American singer/songwriter Sufjan Stevens, released on October 12, 2010, by Asthmatic Kitty. It was Stevens' first song-based full-length album in five years, since the release of Illinois in 2005.
Rocket Girl is a London-based independent record label. It has released records by Robin Guthrie, Pieter Nooten, God Is an Astronaut, Ulrich Schnauss, A Place to Bury Strangers, Bell Gardens among others, including many artists associated with ambient music.
Julianna Barwick is an American musician who composes using electronic loops. Her first album, The Magic Place, was released in 2011.
Tramp is the third album by American singer–songwriter Sharon Van Etten, released on February 7, 2012.
Julia Shammas Holter is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, composer, artist, and academic, based in Los Angeles. Her work has received critical acclaim and incorporates elements of art pop, chamber pop, baroque pop and ambient. Following three independent album productions, Holter released Tragedy as her first official studio album in 2011. Ekstasis followed in 2012. After signing with Domino Records in 2013, she released the albums Loud City Song (2013), Have You in My Wilderness (2015), the live-in-the-studio album In the Same Room (2017) and the double album Aviary (2018).
Chris Cohen is an American singer-songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist best known for his solo albums as well as for having been a member of the band Deerhoof between 2002 and 2006.
Nepenthe is the second studio album from American singer-songwriter Julianna Barwick. It was released in August 2013, under Dead Oceans Records.
Outmind is the first studio album by Matthewdavid. It was released on Brainfeeder on April 19, 2011.
Chris Schlarb is an American composer, songwriter, record producer, and guitarist. He is best known as the founder and leader of the Psychic Temple cult.
Will is the third studio album from American singer-songwriter Julianna Barwick. It was released in May 2016, under Dead Oceans Records.
Roberto Carlos Lange, better known by his stage name Helado Negro, is an American musician. In 2019 he was awarded a United States Artists Fellow in Music and also the recipient of a 2019 Grants to Artists award in Music from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. In 2015 he received a Joyce Foundation award.
Healing Is a Miracle is the fourth studio album by American musician Julianna Barwick. It was released on July 10, 2020 under Ninja Tune.
Arriving early in a decade that would find other young artists drawing inspiration from the once-maligned New Age genre, the album represented a shift in how the underground could embrace the celestial.
