Julie Byrne - Not Even Happiness

Pitchfork 83

There are two things you can’t escape: the sky and yourself. It serves us, then, to understand both. Not Even Happiness, the pristine new album from singer-songwriter Julie Byrne, probes cosmic notions such as these with wonder and aplomb. Wanderer, dreamer, naturist, loner, romantic—with her bold fingerpicking and deep voice, Byrne makes these well-worn identities feel newly alive. Not Even Happiness has all the lucidity and tactility of a healing crystal—or more to the point, a rose quartz, the one that might help you to love.


Blending folk, new age, and silence, Not Even Happiness is a balm. In both sound and sensibility, it strives for clarity, that ultimate marker of enlightenment. Orchestral arrangements sit subtly in the mix; an occasional flute slides in, or a sample of crashing waves. Byrne solemnly charts the places she’s seen—Kansas, Arkansas, Montana, Wyoming—and fills her lyrics with elemental things. She lies in a “verdant field,” catches “stars from a back porch,” watches a “dove over the prairie.” Her language is diffuse, braiding together themes of autonomy, desire, and struggle, but despite the heft of her poetry, the music exudes disarming ease. It feels much shorter than its 33 minutes. Not Even Happiness imagines a cross-section of Leonard Cohen’s mysticism and Judee Sill’s vulnerability—like the latter artist, Byrne’s keen pop sense and stacked harmonies play out like wind carrying her along. “Because they take themselves lightly, angels can fly,” the philosopher Alan Watts notes in his book Become What You Are, and Byrne seems to mind this idea sonically.


Byrne named her album Not Even Happiness because happiness, perhaps, is not always the point. There are virtues beyond happiness—strength, wisdom, integrity, self-possession—and Byrne honors these. Though she is a nomad, she doesn’t romanticize the position; her rootlessness sounds more like a calling, one that chose her, with sacrifices and doubts. “I have dragged my lives across the country/And wondered if travel led me anywhere,” Byrne sings on “I Live Now As a Singer,” conjuring the sweep of This Mortal Coil’s “Song to the Siren.” She sounds devoted to an inner compass only. On opener “Follow My Voice,” Byrne sings, “I was made for the green, made to be alone,” and she prioritizes her solitude with a sly turn: “I’ve been called heartbreaker/For doing justice to my own.” Not unlike Phil Elverum, Byrne paints sublime, awestruck moments when simple things become overwhelming. “Will I know a truer time/Than when I stood alone in the snow,” she sings. “And the moon was in the sky and shone.” Nearly a capella, she intones, “I’ve been seeking God within.”

Despite this self-reliance, these are patently love songs, processing the unravelling of a heart sewn shut. The human heart is never easy in a Byrne song, though, by nature of its connection to an active human mind. Byrne knows the difference between solitude and loneliness, and she bears the lessons of the former while endeavoring the enormous task of navigating the latter with dignity. On “Morning Dove,” her tone evokes Gillian Welch, as she vividly paints her surroundings—the woods, the endless river—but sweetly admits to trailing off: “I thought of you so presently,” she sings. “I could not wait to tell you the truth.”

Gleaming and steadied and wide, “Sleepwalker” is Not Even Happiness’ most gripping moment. It captures both the infatuated feeling of nascent love and how a dream of life can tempt you to lose control of your own. “I traveled only in service of my dreams,” Byrne sings, “I stood before them all/I was a sleepwalker.” Few contemporary songwriters earn a comparison to Angel Olsen, but in its acuity and grace—what Leonard Cohen called “that kind of balance with which you ride the chaos that you find around you”—Not Even Happiness makes a case for Byrne as one of them.

Throughout Not Even Happiness, Byrne sounds like a person who might worship the sky, but the majestic “Natural Blue” is a proper ode. There’s nothing particularly unusual about her tale of driving through familiar southwestern towns on tour, but her images evoke the life-affirming feeling of catching the exquisite light just so through a moving car window, while meditating on the changing scenery as it flickers by. “When I first saw you/That feeling, it came over me, too/Natural blue,” Byrne sings. Were “Natural Blue” released a decade ago, perhaps the poet Maggie Nelson would have found something in it to include in her 2009 prose-poem Bluets, a radiant reflection on the color. “When I was alive, I aimed to be a student not of longing but of light” goes Bluets’ final sentence, and a similar logic guides Not Even Happiness, in which the most worthy wandering happens on roads within.

The Guardian 80

(Basin Rock)

Julie Byrne might not make for the most reliable tenant – her restless side has seen her move home countless times in recent years (Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Seattle, New Orleans … you get the picture). But life on the move has made for interesting music, in which double rainbows (Follow My Voice), breaking dawns (Natural Blue) and even the dye made from crushed beetles (Melting Grid) serve as lyrical inspiration. This second album might not hang together were it not for the fact Byrne herself appears immersed within the worlds she sings about – there’s something pleasingly organic about the way she almost seems to exhale the melodies. Songs such as All the Land That Glimmers Beneath are reminiscent of Jackson Browne’s finger-picked songs for Nico, but there’s an otherworldly glaze of synth that drifts over the likes of I Live Now As a Singer, adding to the unique and intimate atmosphere.

The Guardian 80

(Basin Rock)

Julie Byrne’s 2014 debut had a tiny release but spread far afield through word-of-mouth: here, among a sea of folk sirens, was someone really worth tuning in to. A self-taught fingerpicker, this peripatetic American has a voice of rare elegance, pitched low and misty, and plenty of gentle significance to relay. On her second album, it glides across landscapes both external (Sea As It Glides) and internal (All the Land Glimmered), picking out detail others might not perceive. If anything, the lead track Natural Blue doesn’t sell her charms well enough. Abetted by some sparse orchestration, the beauty of Not Even Happiness takes effect even if you can’t make out Byrne’s measured poeticism: the voice is a balm.

Drowned In Sound 70

Byrne's breathy vocal is at once mesmerising and forgettable. That's not to say that it's unremarkable; rather, its depth (and reverb) washes over you to the point that it's too easy to stop actively listening. She doesn't spit out syllables or razor-sharp rhythms, but it's a mistake to tune out of the words. Byrne explores sea, land and sky in a series of songs that look back both fondly and wistfully on the past, explore the mysteries of love and celebrate a sense of hope in the present. The time taken to create this album was well invested; every aspect is carefully considered, from the running order to the lyrics to the delicate instrumental detail you find flecked throughout.

Natural imagery is everywhere, both in the past – "When I stood alone in the snow/ And the moon was in the sky and it shone/ And all the land glimmered beneath" in 'All The Land Glimmered' – and the present: "We've been lying on the shore for a while/ And the sun is still and you are the sea as it glides" in 'Sea As It Glides'. When it's not a lyrical feature, it's in the vocal itself: the chorus of 'Sea As It Glides' flows like a wave, while the final minute or so of 'Morning Dove' builds a flock of birds out of Byrne's finger-picking and cooing layered backing vocals.

The best moments on the album are the ones that grab you just as things start feeling too samey: lines like "I've been called heartbreaker/ For doing justice to my own" in 'Follow My Voice' and long questions like "Before you had I never known love or had I only known misuse of the power another had over me?" shake you from your comfortable listen. The album's closing track,'I Live Now As A Singer' is characterised by its lingering synth-supported chords, and is the perfect sign-off to a record that's all about self-exploration, acceptance and empowerment.