Tragic Magic finds Julianna Barwick and Mary Lattimore, two of contemporary ambient and experimental music's most celebrated composers, synthesizing their respective crafts within the walls of Philharmonie de Paris, given access to the extraordinary instrument collection of the Musée de la Musique in partnership with the French label InFiné.
The collaborative album, co-produced by Trevor Spencer (Fleet Foxes, Beach House), came together in just nine days, a testament to the "musical telepathy," as Barwick puts it, that has developed between the two artists over the years, traveling the world as friends and tourmates. Sessions crossed improvisation with loose ideas they arrived in Paris with from Los Angeles, shortly after the January 2025 wildfires. Still reeling for their community, the two artists embraced a divine setting, feeling deeply cared for by their hosts and overwhelmed by the beauty and history at their fingertips. Lattimore selected three harps tracing the evolution of the instrument from 1728 to 1873, and Barwick chose several analog synthesizers that have shaped decades of exploratory music, including the Roland JUPITER and Sequential Circuits PROPHET-5, among other treasures. Together in freeform dialogue, voice and instrument, they render a meditation on tragedy, wonder, and the restorative power of shared experience. Tragic Magic features seven immersive, evocative songs guided by the human spirit. Intimate, grounded in friendship, earthly yet cosmic, and part of a greater continuum, speaking to the solace of artistry that’s lifted us for generations.
“We were so lucky to have access to this experience. There was a lot of reverence, working with people with such warmth and enthusiasm, bringing these instruments into a modern context, literally taken off the shelves of the museum,” says Lattimore. “We wanted to honor the past while making music that we feel is a true expression of ourselves,” Barwick adds. “People ask, how was Paris? I’m like, it was perfect. It was like everything just aligned.”
The duo, often joined by Spencer, filled their free time in the city, sharing meals and seeing various museums and landmarks, each encounter leaving an impression on the next day’s session. For the album opener, "Perpetual Adoration", the group channels an immense volume of emotion drawn from a visit to the Basilica of Sacré Cœur de Montmartre. One rainy night, they saw a sign outside the cathedral labeled "ADORATION PERPÉTUELLE" and entered the reverberant space where a nun was singing above organ drones during Sunday Mass. The resulting performance nods both to the moment and the stories within these instruments. The gilded, ornate Érard double-movement harp (France, 1873), the first modern pedal harp, remains open for innovation here. Barwick wields the revolutionary PROPHET-5, introduced in 1978 as the world’s first fully programmable polyphonic synthesizer. Her skyward synth and vocal lines ascend alongside Lattimore's tender harp strums for a stunning, slow-building entry into the set.
Share With Friends