Julie Byrne

Drawing favorable comparisons to folk titans such as Vashti Bunyan and Joni Mitchell, singer/songwriter Julie Byrne occupies the wispier, more plaintive regions of modern indie folk, with a backing palette that spans solo fingerpicked guitar, harp, and strings, or more ambient drone and synth accompaniment. Following a cassette compilation, her broader indie breakthrough was 2017's Not Even Happiness. Its varied arrangements all served Byrne's soft, smoky vocals to haunting effect, an approach given an affectionate spin on 2023's elegant The Greater Wings, her first set to include songs written on piano.

Byrne was born and raised in Buffalo, New York, and her father was a wedding singer. She didn't begin to play music herself until she was 17, when her father was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and could no longer sing. She left her hometown at the age of 18 and began what would become a nomadic existence. She moved to Chicago but dropped out of school there and worked in a grocery store. Unfulfilled by her new job, she began making music. Her first proper record, Rooms with Walls & Windows, was a compilation of two earlier cassettes: Julie Byrne and You Would Love It Here, which were recorded live while she was living in Chicago in 2012 and 2013. By the time it was released by the small independent label Orindal in 2014, Byrne had moved to New Orleans, but was soon bound for New York. During her time there, she became a park ranger in Central Park. She also made a pilgrimage to her childhood home in Buffalo to record her follow-up record, Not Even Happiness, with violinist Jake Falby and producer Eric Littmann. The nod to her past made by recording at her childhood home was countered by the album's attempts to come to terms with the transient lifestyle she had chosen. The record was met with widespread critical acclaim upon its release on Ba Da Bing Records in 2017, with music journalists praising Byrne's songwriting (that drew heavily from the folk tradition) and voice, which carries vocal weight despite her often whispery delivery.

Days and nights away on tour, long periods of isolation, and the death of Littmann, with whom she had begun recording her next album, all informed the more life-affirming follow-up, The Greater Wings. Still gentle, languid, and full of pathos, it was completed with producer Alex Somers (Sigur Rós, Julianna Barwick). Also featuring her first ventures into writing on piano, The Greater Wings arrived on Ghostly International in July of 2023.