It’s been a while since I reviewed something from the realms of Julie Slick. The first time I had done that was on my blogsite, Music from the Other Side of the Room with the album EchoTest’s From Two Balconies nearly ten years ago in April, and then me, joining with the website Echoes and Dust. Now, here we are, in 2026, and it’s time to open the doors into Julie’s world as she teams up with Tim Motzer on Frozen Holy Water.
I had also reviewed Tim’s works as well. Between his collaboration with Gregg Bendian, Markus Reuter, Motzer, and Grohowski, and PAKT (Percy Jones, Alex Skolnick, Kenny Grohowski, and Tim Motzer). So, for the two of them to collaborate for Frozen Holy Water, it’s like opening up the pathway to see what lies in the hidden doors and the future that awaits.
Recorded last year in January, they set up this eerie, ambient drift into time and space during the middle of a heavy snow storm. You can feel the quietness, the touch, the coldness, and the sudden ghost town Motzer and Slick have created in their arrangements during these hefty times in the snowy and icy weather they unfolded.
Most of the time, it’s almost as if they had recorded it during the snow front with cups of hot cocoa, plant-based diets, and a mixture of loyalty and friendship they have with each other. There are some of the Floydian textures which is evidential during the early years from the Ummagumma-era behind ‘Snow Moon (Blues)’ which Motzer channels a young Gilmour, pouring his heart and soul into his fret board.
The dark-like quality just kicks you in the gut in a way that you feel by walking in the middle of the storm, the wind hitting your face, trying to get to safety without freezing to death which is evidential on the spaghetti western turned Krautrock-like approach between the ‘Crystal Forest’ and the electronic pedals dripping snowflakes for its ‘Diamond Dust’, ‘Glacial’, and the rising ‘Snaw-Ghast’ to calm the situation down and hope for a chance for the sun to clear out the dark, grey clouds to melt the ice in front of the listener.
Slick’s pedals and Motzer’s electronics really capture that ominous momentum in their arrangements that is presented on here. It’s the energy and the spirit the duo has put their collaboration into one and the soundtrack for the day when you’re stuck in your house, having this cabin fever momentum, but the music lends itself this meditated vibe to get you through the snowiest day of your life.
