Julianna Barwick

Photograph: Vera Marmelo

Abrons Arts Center at Henry Street Settlement; May 2, 2008

Brooklynite Julianna Barwick’s voice is high, lucid and vaguely spiritual, like that of a child in a Christian-themed horror film. Her songs feature hardly any discernible words, yet few local musicians are so vocally oriented. On her self-released Sanguine, Barwick employs a guitar pedal to loop her voice, effectively creating her own backing choir through a modest four-track. Her overlapping vocals—almost entirely devoted to desperate Scrabble ploys like ahh or ooh—mesh together in a lovely blur. While Barwick rarely mimics the sound of an instrument, her web of vocals ultimately fills the role traditionally held by a band (aside from an occasional guitar, the album is largely a cappella). The songs, which Barwick reproduces onstage using similar vocal loops, assume a wraithlike aura reflecting the artist’s churchgoing background—an ideal match for this handsome Lower East Side theater.