download julien baker turn out the lights

On “Hurt Less”, the longing in her voice is pronounced as she asks for just a few minutes more to talk with a friend in a car so she doesn’t have to go inside and face herself. The details in a song like “Sour Breath”, where she pretends to lie asleep in bed knowing her partner is drinking alone in the other room to avoid seeing her, capture the raw pain of feeling like a disappointment with searing clarity. One of Baker’s many talents is the ability to create entire worlds out of the most intimate moments. As songs like “Appointments” and the title track show, she has grown assured in letting her vibrant voice carry the weight of her words, making for a devastating combination. Cam Boucher’s woodwinds and Camille Faulkner’s violin add flourishes, but Baker’s poised use of piano, organ, and electric guitar lays the groundwork for an expanse that can contain her tremendous voice, which she lets out in full force. Whereas her debut was sparse and solitary, Turn Out the Lights finds Baker widening her scope to cavernous levels where each echo is acutely felt. The then 19-year-old singer built a following with brutally honest ballads about working to overcome substance abuse and live through depression. Over the course of 45 minutes, she exposes her deepest insecurities in an effort to form a meaningful connection with her audience, finding no easy answers along the way.Įmerging from the DIY scene in Nashville in 2015, Baker took the scene by storm on Sprained Ankle, a pared down yet achingly powerful album. A blistering examination of depression and self-doubt, her album displays just how exhausting it can be to find even semblances of hope when feeling drowned by anxieties. Throughout Turn Out the Lights, her groundbreaking second album, and first for Matador Records, she refers to herself as a masochist, a hypocrite, a jumble of faulty circuitry resulting from a flawed design.

No one is more critical of Julien Baker than herself.

Download julien baker turn out the lights