There are at least three ideal situations in which to listen to Tragic Magic, the gentle, contemplative new collaborative album from the ambient composer Julianna Barwick and experimental harpist Mary Lattimore.The first is on an early morning train ride across the country, cocooned in liminal space where you feel both exhausted and alive, wiping the dreary sleep from your eyes in anticipation of the destination to come. The second is during a languid stroll through the city at night, your mind cradled by the soft glow of streetlamps and the insulated warmth of the snow-blanketed streets. And finally, in the bath, if you're the kind of person who bathes.Like any good ambient music, the songs on Tragic Magic have a balming effect — an uncanny ability to wipe the mind clean of anxiety, placing you in the present. Arriving at a moment of aggressive political tumult, this album is a gift for our collective unease; a gentle grounding force.Past collaborators and friends, that Barwick and Lattimore would one day join forces for a full-length project has always felt inevitable. Both are known for their spacious, atmospheric compositions, though crafted with different tools: Barwick uses electronics and synthesizers to layer her voice into towers of choral sound that rise like church spires, while the classically-trained Lattimore handles the harp with slow and deliberate precision, like Joanna Newsom dipped in molasses.At the start of 2025, Barwick and Lattimore decamped to the Philharmonie de Paris, where they were granted access to the vast instrument collection of the Musée de la Musique. The former dug out a selection of analogue synthesizers, while the latter chose three harps, each hundreds of years old, and together, they began to improvise and build upon ideas they had previously sketched out.The result is a seamless coalescence of two visions, stretching across seven (mostly) lengthy, (mostly) transfixing soundscapes. Opener "Perpetual Adoration" begins with a series of brightly plucked harp notes that pierce through the silence before Lattimore is joined by Barwick's soaring falsetto, the musicians drifting into a perfect tandem like reunited pieces of distant Pangea.The record continues in this mode for several songs, each a serene panorama that seems to breathe and expand, elevated by celestial melodies and textures; each a sliver of sun on the horizon at dusk, warming the land degree by imperceptible degree. On the sorrowful standout "Haze with No Haze," Lattimore's sparkling glissandos and Barwick's vocal loops merge into a breathtaking reverberation that twirls forth atop a despairing synthesizer.The project hits a bit of a rut with "Rachel's Song" — an anachronistic cover of a Vangelis composition for Blade Runner — and the subsequent "Stardust," whose droning synth line and latent drum pattern ironically also give the impression of the film score for a sci-fi thriller, albeit an underbaked one.Fortunately, Tragic Magic rediscovers its rhythm on closing track "Melted Moon," a song written in response to the tragic wildfires that consumed much of Los Angeles last January. "The lights are all out / A strange taste in my mouth," Barwick sings, her voice uncharacteristically clear and unfiltered. "You may never go home again / At least not the home you know." It's a stunning finale, one that breaks the listener's reverie, placing them once again into the gritty reality of the world.Though it may be categorized as experimental or avant-garde, Tragic Magic is an accessible and rewarding listen. It's music you can get lost in, or get lost to.
Wavelength
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