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Julien Baker - Little Oblivions (February 26, 2021; Matador) Album • Page 34

Discussion in 'Music Forum' started by ItsAndrew, Jun 8, 2019.

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ItsAndrew Feb 11, 2021

Prestigious Prestigious

Matt Chylak said:

Did this leak or do you have an advance?

It has not leaked (as far as I know). The two users above who have the album work for music publications.

sawhney[rusted]2, Carrow and Matt Chylak like this.
alphaadept Feb 12, 2021

Newbie

Some of y’all might be interested in this

Julien Baker - Tuesday, March 2nd at 7:00 PM CST *available for viewing with Grimey's preorder purchase*
Baker will perform an in-store virtual session at Grimey’s on Tuesday, March 2nd at 7PM CST that is exclusively available to view if you preorder Little Oblivions. Preorder customers will be emailed instructions on Monday, 3/1 explaining how to view the performance. This email will be sent to the address used to purchase the album, so please be sure to provide your best contact, as not to miss the notification!
ItsAndrew Feb 12, 2021

Prestigious Prestigious

alphaadept said:

Some of y’all might be interested in this

Julien Baker - Tuesday, March 2nd at 7:00 PM CST *available for viewing with Grimey's preorder purchase*
Baker will perform an in-store virtual session at Grimey’s on Tuesday, March 2nd at 7PM CST that is exclusively available to view if you preorder Little Oblivions. Preorder customers will be emailed instructions on Monday, 3/1 explaining how to view the performance. This email will be sent to the address used to purchase the album, so please be sure to provide your best contact, as not to miss the notification!

You don’t need to buy anything to gain access, you can sign up here for free: Julien Baker Live Stream

falafelmywaffle, Smittzerland, chhholly123 and 1 other person like this.
alphaadept Feb 12, 2021

Newbie

Thanks! I’ll leave that link up in case anyone wants to get colored vinyl, I guess
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ItsAndrew Feb 16, 2021
(Last edited: Feb 16, 2021)

Prestigious Prestigious

Records/CDs have started to ship, some people already have their copies. Check your tracking info to see if yours is coming today/this week/early.

Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/JulienBaker/comments/ll7my4/i_wasnt_expecting_this_for_another_week_or_two/

Carrow and Smittzerland like this.
Smittzerland Feb 16, 2021

First time long time (FKA musicfan9795) Prestigious

No tracking yet (assuming it's USPS)

falafelmywaffle likes this.
Madmod Feb 16, 2021

Lurking

It would be a dream come true if mine was delivered early while I survive this hell hole in Texas currently

maryp1603 and @@ron like this.
ItsAndrew Feb 16, 2021

Prestigious Prestigious

Wall Street Journal review!

‘Little Oblivions’ by Julien Baker Review: Climbing Back From Rock Bottom

Article is paywalled so:

The first sound we hear on “Hardline”—the opening track from “Little Oblivions” (Matador), the new album by 25-year-old Julien Baker—is a heavy chord from an organ that brings to mind the sanctity of church but also, with its woolly distortion, distress. In the context of Ms. Baker’s oeuvre, this sound alone marks a major shift.

Her first album, 2015’s “Sprained Ankle,” a collection of shadowy folk numbers, almost exclusively featured her voice, acoustic guitar, and a bit of piano. On 2017’s acclaimed follow-up, “Turn Out the Lights,” she plugged her instrument into an amp and added touches of strings and woodwinds, but the record was drum-free and still spare in the extreme. Yet that organ chord on “Hardline” and the percussion that enters shortly after suggest that we’re in for a different kind of experience on album number three, one where instrumental color and sharper melodies share the load with Ms. Baker’s dark lyrics and expressive singing.

“Little Oblivions,” out Feb. 26, finds Ms. Baker coming into her own as a studio artist, having already established herself as a first-rate singer and songwriter. She produced the record and played most of the instruments herself, with some instrumental contributions from engineer and longtime friend Calvin Lauber. Along with layered guitars rendered in a wide range of tones—twangy, chiming, fuzzy—Ms. Baker adds piano, synth, bass and drums.

Most of these songs feature a troubled narrator who yearns for peace and connection but it is tormented by self-destructive impulses. Ms. Baker grew up in Memphis, Tenn.—she now lives in Nashville—and formed a rock band with friends while still a teenager. Her family is religious and she’s a Christian, but she’s also gay. From an early age she struggled with substance abuse: She gave a memorable interview to GQ in 2019, in a piece about musicians who have been reborn in sobriety, and confessed later that she wasn’t sober during that period. Spiritual conflicts and personal tribulations like these provide fuel for her songwriting. This album takes uncertainty and contradiction as a given and focuses on rendering in-the-moment intensity with honesty.

“Heatwave,” the album’s second track, captures how her narratives move between the mundane and the shattering. It’s easily her loosest and breeziest tune, a country-rock-style lilt descended from Sheryl Crow that hides dark desires behind the appealing surface. The chorus—“I was on a long spiral down / But before I make it to the ground / I’ll wrap Orion’s belt around my neck and kick the chair out”—is almost unbearably visceral, but since the surrounding music is so winsome and breezy, the horror of the image seeps in slowly after multiple listens.

“Faith Healer,” a song about being desperate enough to try anything, has a beautifully jangly guitar and subtle programmed percussion, and it suggests that the newly sober confront a different horror: “I miss the high, how it dulled the terror and the beauty / Now I see everything in startling intensity.”

Ms. Baker has a talent for seeing how truths about human life and behavior can be found in minor details. In “Favor,” a midtempo number with a shuffling beat, she describes inching toward self-knowledge as something that “Doesn’t feel too bad but it doesn’t feel too good either / Just like a nicotine patch; it hardly works then it’s over,” while on “Hardline,” boozing is a way to “split the difference between medicine and poison.”

Her piano-led ballads, which on earlier records put the melody in the background to allow the dynamics of her voice to shine through, now trade raw expression for melodic beauty. It’s easy to imagine Adele covering “Crying Wolf,” a song about wrestling with sobriety that begins with the line “Day-one chip on your dresser, get loaded at your house.” The way Ms. Baker jumps to a softer version of her upper vocal register is new for her and lends it an extra layer of vulnerability.

As with Ms. Baker’s earlier records, “Little Oblivions” is sometimes so emotionally punishing it’s difficult to bear. It’s hard not to worry when an artist mines her own life so intensely for material. At some point, to protect herself, she may need to shift gears and observe characters from a certain amount of distance. But for now, she’s rendering the details of her life with new clarity, crafting songs that anyone who struggles will recognize. And with “Little Oblivions,” she’s found a newly vivid musical setting that should help these stories reach more people who need them.

coleslawed, biffbybiff, Lucas27 and 3 others like this.
DaydreamNation Feb 16, 2021

boat saw god Supporter

Love Mark Richardson, so hype for this
ItsAndrew Feb 17, 2021

Prestigious Prestigious

MexicanGuitars, falafelmywaffle, bigmike and 6 others like this.
Carrow Feb 17, 2021

maybe this time, I won't be alright Supporter

ItsAndrew said:

OH GOD IT'S FULL BAND AND I'VE NEVER BEEN SO FUCKING READY TO GET SAD
maryp1603 Feb 17, 2021

Hey. Supporter

Good read: Julien Baker is just being honest

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Meghin Feb 17, 2021

Uhhhhhhhhhh... Supporter

My pre-order is out for delivery today!

falafelmywaffle likes this.
Jim Feb 17, 2021

Trusted Supporter

Meghin said:

My pre-order is out for delivery today!

Wow mine hasn’t even shipped I don’t think. Where’d you order from?

SAB22 likes this.
Meghin Feb 17, 2021

Uhhhhhhhhhh... Supporter

Jim said:

Wow mine hasn’t even shipped I don’t think. Where’d you order from?

Matador's site, back in October. I did the "Spotify Fans First" thing where I was able to get the Spotify variant (since everything else was sold out by the time I wanted to order it DAY OF announcement!)

Jim likes this.
SAB22 Feb 17, 2021

adulting22.bandcamp.com Prestigious

Jim said:

Wow mine hasn’t even shipped I don’t think. Where’d you order from?

yeah same for me :/
maryp1603 Feb 17, 2021

Hey. Supporter

Jim said:

Wow mine hasn’t even shipped I don’t think. Where’d you order from?

Same here. I ordered from Julien's site and no update.
ItsAndrew Feb 17, 2021

Prestigious Prestigious

falafelmywaffle likes this.
ImAMetaphor Feb 17, 2021

one with the riverbed Prestigious

I want this album so bad

maryp1603 and SAB22 like this.
hermanthehermit Feb 17, 2021

Paris, Texas Climate Accord Supporter

Between this and MO, I’m going to have to confront so much religious trauma this year, aren’t I? I’m ready for it.

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Dog Fish Feb 17, 2021

Mutt

hermanthehermit said:

Between this and MO, I’m going to have to confront so much religious trauma this year, aren’t I? I’m ready for it.

I had a rough rough rough road getting out of religion a few years ago. I’m hoping I can connect with records where the leads have stuck with their religion.

hermanthehermit likes this.
Meghin Feb 17, 2021

Uhhhhhhhhhh... Supporter

Folks, this is a SOLID record. These lyrics are really cutting deep. I'm on my first listen and I'm absolutely blown away.

awakeohsleeper, themoonisdown, loudasallgetout and 2 others like this.
hermanthehermit Feb 17, 2021

Paris, Texas Climate Accord Supporter

Dog Fish said:

I had a rough rough rough road getting out of religion a few years ago. I’m hoping I can connect with records where the leads have stuck with their religion.

I’m on the line between religious and agnostic, which is a hard place to be when you’re a worship leader (or were before the pandemic) lol. Songs that sit in that liminal space hit me deep.

coleslawed and awakeohsleeper like this.
awakeohsleeper Feb 17, 2021

I do not exist.

hermanthehermit said:

I’m on the line between religious and agnostic, which is a hard place to be when you’re a worship leader (or were before the pandemic) lol. Songs that sit in that liminal space hit me deep.

I had this a few years ago when I was still leading worship/preaching but wasn’t sure what I believed anymore. It’s a strange place to be - the liminal art/music still hits me hard.

hermanthehermit likes this.
theagentcoma Feb 17, 2021

linktr.ee/jordansmith.author Prestigious

Dang how many ex worship leaders we got in here? I did that for years

hermanthehermit likes this.

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