Music

Only the Void Stands Between Us is the debut album by Julie Beth Napolin (Citay, Meridians). Not only elementally vast in its thematic outer-traveling, it is also a work that is deeply, darkly personal at its core. The record flows around that dynamic axis resonating with embedded drones, mantra-like lyrics and grand, psychedelic folk songs that balance an inherent experimentalism and melodic accessibility in a way few artists do as effortlessly.

With its ethereal, buzzing acoustic riffs, helix of resonant drones, and vocal delivery that often sounds like an ancient form of prayer, Only the Void Stands Between Us sure-footedly takes its place in the post-’70s experimental folk lineage.

Napolin’s striking lower-range, alto voice and the balance of drone and rich fundamental strumming are at the heart of the arrangements bringing cosmic and psychedelic impact to the music.

“I probably first discovered my voice by singing along with men (most often Tom Verlaine, Arthur Lee, and Colin Blunstone) and finding I didn’t have to go up an octave to do it,” Napolin says. “I started out as a bass player, and when I was first figuring out how to play guitar, I played it like a bass, also dropping the strings to produce lower frequencies. For me, that’s where vibration becomes most mystical, in that lower range.”

Only the Void Stands Between Us begins with the title track, its namesake taken from the poem “So Many Constellations” by Holocaust-survivor Paul Celan. The first sound on the album is a low drone, followed by the powerful repeating chordal strum of an acoustic guitar, and finally Julie’s ear-catching voice, singing, nearly in chant, while the three elements combine in resonance as a sonically thematic through-line at the heart of the album.

“In resonance, we find things other than where they are in space and time. They move out into memory, other places, other people. We encounter the notion that the fundamental unit of being is not one, but two. Each thing requires something other than itself to resonate (air through a flute, your voice in the room).” Julie continues, “For me, this becomes a way of thinking about the relationship between writing and sound, but also identity in general – each of us is more-than-one.”

On the album’s second track “Sawdust” Napolin sings:

Sawdust in your eyes / Making your own divide / The mystery of others’ words

They’re following you/ Again, again / The apocalypse is on your mind

You’re darkening / I see you / Again, again / Holding on…

Napolin discusses the importance of intensity in the delivery of the themes and lyrical content of Only the Void Stands Between Us:

“My lyrics circle around something changing shape or form, death, or desire for belonging and connection. I want things to be beautiful,” Napolin continues, “but not in a way that shies away or is purely aesthetic, because I find that cowardly. It’s important to me that created sounds are courageous and emotional, not something to escape into.”

Though the soaring vocal lines and adrenalized folk of Catherine Ribeiro, the experimental-folk vision of Nico, and the neo-psychedelia of Kendra Smith come to mind as immediate reference points for Only the Void Stands Between Us (all three of the aforementioned also sing in the distinctive alto range that Napolin does), Julie also describes rock influences in her music, including the great Baltimore riff-mystics Lungfish, whose “Pray for the Living” Julie covers on the album:

“I wanted to wed Lungfish’s sense of what was possible with a single riff to those other player’s sense of envelopment in resonance where the voice or guitar becomes autonomous and world-building/mystical.”

Napolin grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico and taught herself to play guitar by ear. After a stint in Chicago in 1999 interning at Drag City, she touched down in San Francisco in 2000 just in time for yet another great musical explosion in the far western city. Julie cut her teeth at open mic performances, where fellow artists like Joanna Newsom and Devendra Banhart would drop in, before landing in SF psych rock outfit Citay, as a full-time member playing keys, flute, and guitar. Citay played on bills with the likes of Six Organs of Admittance, Om, and Earthless, and the exposure to psych rock and inspired heavy underground music left its mark on her songwriting. In 2012, Meridians, Napolin’s duo with luthier Trevor Healy (Snake Oil), recorded and released their debut album. She then made a permanent move to New York City where she connected with experimental composer/guitarist David First, who provided multiple micro-tonal drone tracks on Only the Void Stands Between Us as well as Tom Carter (of Charalambides), who plays a beautifully fractured but melodic guitar solo on the title track. These east coast connections redoubled Julie’s approach to traditional song craft through an experimental perspective.

Julie Beth Napolin currently lives in the Hudson Valley, NY, is a published author, and has a PhD in Rhetoric from Berkeley. She teaches sound studies, philosophy, and literature at the New School in Manhattan.

Only the Void Stands Between Us will be released November 29th, 2024 on Silver Current Records.