LITTLE OBLIVIONS OUT FEBRUARY 26 VIA MATADOR RECORDS
Julien Baker will release her third studio album, Little Oblivions, on February 26 via Matador Records. Last night she performed the first single from the album, “Faith Healer,” on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. Captured in Nashville, it features Baker backed by a full band and represents the expanded sound that can be heard on the forthcoming album. “How does a songwriter hold on to honest vulnerability as her audience grows,” The New York Times pondered last week in its column on “11 Things To Look Forward to In 2021,” “She scales her music up to larger spaces, backed by a full rock band with ringing guitars and forceful drums. But she doesn’t hide behind them; she’s still ruthless and unsparing, particularly about herself.” Rolling Stone have noted “Little Oblivions‘ is not only the most richly produced, pop-aware release of Baker’s career, but also her the most unsparingly honest in its messiness” and of “Faith Healer” Vulture said, “Julien Baker remains devastating on new song “Faith Healer.”
Watch Julien Baker’s Colbert performance here.
| “Faith Healer” introduced the exhilarating, widescreen musical palette and infectious spirit of risk-taking found on Little Oblivions, a transformative sonic shift from Baker’s more spare and intimate previous work. Engineered by Calvin Lauber and mixed by Craig Silvey (The National, Florence & the Machine, Arcade Fire), both of whom worked with Baker on 2017’s Turn Out the Lights, the album was recorded in Baker’s hometown of Memphis, Tennessee between December 2019 and January 2020. Baker’s tactile guitar and piano playing are enriched with newfound textures encompassing bass, drums, synthesizers, banjo and mandolin, with nearly all of the instruments performed by Baker. The album weaves unflinching autobiography with assimilated experience and often hard-won observations from the past few years, taking Baker’s capacity for starkly galvanising storytelling to breathtaking new heights. In October the news of Little Oblivions upcoming release was a top 20 trending topic on Twitter and four special editions of the album (via Vinyl Me Please, Magnolia Record Club, 6131, and Spotify) sold out almost instantaneously. Preorders are upwards of 6000 units and to date “Faith Healer” has amassed over 2 million streams. “A longing for relief — spiritual, physical, emotional — fills ‘Faith Healer.’” The New York Times “An anthem of vigorous hope” Fader on “Faith Healer” “2020 needed more Julien Baker in it, and the emotive singer-songwriter came through.” Teen Vogue “Stunning” Nylon on “Faith Healer” “The track marks a musical expansion for Baker,” Uproxx “When Julien Baker sings, the people listen, and “Faith Healer” — the raspy-voiced indie rocker’s new single — is no exception. The soul-baring cut is as much a song about literal addiction as it is an ode to misplaced faith.” MTV “Mesmerizing” Billboard Pride on “Faith Healer” “Baker’s guitar playing coils tightly and beautifully around her lyrics, which forthrightly tackle substance abuse, and the painful mental space it can occupy even for those who have managed to throw off its clutches.” Guitar World Little Oblivions is the follow up to Baker’s 2017 sophomore album and first on Matador Turn Out The Lights. The New York Times said the LP is “the work of a songwriter who has resonated with an international audience (…), the rare second album that, despite new self-consciousness, stretches beyond an unspoiled debut to reach for even bigger things, with all its passion intact”. The Sunday Times said “the mix of detached vocals, lush arrangements and laid-bare post-mortems on love, loss, dysfunction and acceptance is devastating.” |
Little Oblivions track listing
01. Hardline
02. Heatwave
03. Faith Healer
04. Relative Fiction
05. Crying Wolf
06. Bloodshot
07. Ringside
08. Favor
09. Song in E
10. Repeat
11. Highlight Reel
12. Ziptie