Self-proclaimed sad girls and country heads alike can bask that their dreams have finally collided with the new joint project from power houses Julien Baker and TORRES. Send A Prayer My Way is out today on Matador Records.
Both southern charmers who were raised with the soundtrack of austral life never quite saw themselves reflected in the music that symbolizes their home states of Georgia and Memphis, respectively. This work cheriches the parts of country music that make it what it is, from the twangy vocals, stripped chord progressions, and pedal steel guitars. Simultaneously it casts away its regression and builds something queer and transcendent.
The album opens with a classic country song, “Dirt,” which also served as a lead single off the album. It offers Baker’s buttery vocals floating over finger plucked notes on her guitar. TORRES’ offers background accents that don’t distract but simply emphasize. This is a donation to the listener, she really is the best to ever do it, and she continues to provide. TORRES enters in the second verse with her gritty, baroque voice – a perfect compliment to Bakers’.
This back and forth is a theme throughout the album, it is a joint record of course but it never gets old. You almost start feeling excited, anticipating when each of them will come in to build a song up to the it’s highest peak.
The songwriting on this project will be what carves a space out for the duo to go down as one of the greats. Carter and Cash, Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty, make way for Baker & TORRES. Lyrics like, “So I search the corner bar i lost my faith/I lost my woman so i went swimming in a river of roses,” might at first read feel plucked by a Brothers Dunne song but that’s the best part. This genre is their home so the classic traits are intrinsic to what they’ve created, but just by making this album, they have transformed the typical songs into something of their very own, for queer, marginalized audiences alike.
In support of the LP Baker & TORRES will embark on the “Send A Prayer My Way” U.S. tour with headline dates kicking off April 23 in Richmond, VA and concluding in Omaha, NE on May 12. Additionally, they are also playing previously announced festival dates like Kilby Block Party, Newport Folk Festival, All Things Go, and more.
Send A Prayer My Way is out now.
Words by Ilana Rubin for Staged Haze
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