Not Even Happiness

Description

The highly acclaimed second album by Julie Byrne, "Not Even Happiness" (2017), added atmospheric instrumentation and electronic flourishes to her unusual guitar chords and finger-plucked melodies. This reissue follows the recent and widely acclaimed release of The Greater Wings, her first album in nearly seven years and her first since Not Even Happiness. Julie Byrne is a romantic of ancient ages who wanders, floating yet equally pragmatic, through modern humanity. A nomadic woman, seasonal ranger in Central Park, New York, who stumbled upon her father's guitar a few years after he had to, sick, give up music, the 26-year-old American recounts on Not Even Happiness her wanderings of body and mind. There are miles of United States on this second album, at their peak on Sleepwalker and Melting Grid, but also truly still, solitary, almost mystical moments. Leaning on her acoustic guitar, Julie Byrne sometimes adds a flute, a harmonica, or waves in the background, a reminder of the Pacific. It's more than folk - in her velvety, patient voice, there is a sleepy neo-americana and even a new age breath (I Live Now as a Singer). With her, the very embodiment of her melodies with elusive loves and devoted poetry, the disarray of the world is nothing more than a volatile weight.