Julien Baker - Sprained Ankle, my god

https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2018/11/29/boygenius_cpollack_brick-02f55231f7ee6092d2ae7404589d9acb5525f594-s2000-c85.jpg
with love from Cameron Pollack/NPR

the boygenius ep is great. somehow i only discovered it now.

somehow I only tried her music lately, and now I am head over heels, can barely listen to anything else. it's as though "Little Fury Bugs" is a genre and it warrants 10000x investigations, every angle must be pursued. my ankles are sprained.

I've only heard Turn Out the Lights, did she cover that Death Cab song somewhere?

no, but "Appointments" for instance is a take on it, in the way that the lines of marble guide the sculpter's hand

Oh! I see what you mean now, sorry, that makes sense. Now I have another reason to go back to "Appointments" though!

the way she sings "marathon runner, my ankles are sprained", and in particular, the word "my" into the word "ankles", I could listen to that forever and ever and ever. I feel a terrible loss, or even a shame, there that I can't understand outside the singing. is shame supposed to be so beautiful?

new shit!

https://youtu.be/bWAOkg2i6_g

there is actual percussion! it sounds good! album is out in february.

Yeah I like that.

Once again I fell into a loop of watching live performances of her and it’s so hypnotizing. Seeing her perform
is the definition of Sehnsucht for me.

I have only listened to Julien Baker a lil bit (mostly the boygenius record) but this is one of my favorite ILM thread titles

'hypnotizing' otm

The boygenius record is probably the best thing she has been involved with. I don’t think I actually like listening to her lyrics or her records in a way that I enjoy let’s say, Phoebe Bridgers, but seeing her live performances is so enthralling to me because she seems to go somewhere else when doing so. The way she gets completely lost in it is not that common to see imho... it’s the small performances of her... I’ve seen videos of her with big audiences and I don’t think it works that well because she’s sounds more self-conscious.

I have the opposite problem. I can't get into any of Bridgers's solo stuff but I love Baker and Boygenius

I've fallen down a couple of Baker YouTube wormholes recently. She's captivating on stage - lost in it and seemingly lacking in self-consciousness. I've been trying to find a non-weird way of saying 'it's her mouth' but there it is. That turn of the head she does. She's so good.

This sounds really interesting and I'd love to hear what any ilxors with musical nous might make of it.

"For the exciting Isolate/Create project, Julien Baker offers the stems for her new single “Faith Healer” from the forthcoming album ‘Little Oblivions’. These are supplied for the purpose of remixing and reinterpretation, hopefully offering some fodder for creativity during this challenging time."

https://www.isolatecreate.com/julien-baker/

I love Julien Baker, and at the same time I agree she's not (so far) as distinctive a songwriter as Phoebe Bridgers or Lucy Dacus. Or she's distinctive, but it all pretty much sounds like the same song (a good song, but still). That said, I like her whole sound and vibe enough that I don't really care. AND the one time I got to see her live was just incandescent, she's an amazing performer. Anyway, I like "Faith Healer" and I'll be happy to hear the new album. Hoping that she's maybe sharpened and varied her approach a bit.

xp

Cool! I may download those and try it. Any ideas for a remix/re-imagining?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pGBIAiJPF4&

I want to love everything she does but I'm just not that wild about the sound of this record so far

yeah i feel the same at the moment

also

hm, i think this sounds awesome but i'm not sure i hear the song yet

record is self-produced! that's interesting! i was like is this dave fridmann

weird, I'm currently listening to the Apple Music Julien Baker Essentials playlist for the millionth time, did not know a new song was on the way today

I like the song, but love the video.

her previous work never really clicked with me but the new album is sounding good, really like her arrangements

her new work still is not clicking with me. I don't like the arrangements :(

maybe it's just that her vox and lyrics are so big and intense on their own that even relatively small additions feel to me like a hat on a hat, just a giant stack of self-loathing hats

I've had this on repeat in the background while I'm working, and at that level I like it but only a few songs have made me pause to see what their titles are. In general it sounds a lot like Turn Out the Lights, with the arrangements a natural progression from that album's fuller sound. I like her a lot, but also I think she's kind of a great sound in search of great songs. More songwriting collaborations would be good for her imo.

I think my other problem, and this might just be me, is that the lyrics tip over into a level of pain and self-loathing where I honestly just start to worry whether this level of public emotional exposure is healthy or even safe, especially since she seems to get more raw and specific with each release (and has grown in commercial stature with each one). like, I'm not in recovery but I have friends who are, and imagining them putting themselves "out there" to this extent makes my stomach churn

Yeah, I admire her candor and also hope this is all catharsis rather than crisis.

Another song just registered for me. Maybe if I listen to it all weekend they'll differentiate themselves.

is it a pixies track that favor rips at the beginning?

sounds a bit like "Gigantic" maybe

hmm i think that's why i thought of pixies but i think there's something else out there that's closer to it that isn't a pixies track i guess

"here comes your man"? that's the track that comes to mind, but only because i'm listening specifically for a pixies reference. having said that, i get more of a sebadoh vibe from those opening notes

still not all the way into this album, but "Repeat" is pretty great. in a super grim way.

A ton of great melodies on this album, and the lyrics are raw, effective, and gutting, but the production and recording sounds quite muddied and leaves me wanting throughout. Still one of the better American indie-rock records I've heard this year.

great live show!! Her voice is amazing and her band rips and she seems like a really cool person!!!

sorry for xasanthur style post