Julien Baker - Turn Out The Lights (Vinyl)

Her Matador Records debut, Turn Out the Lights is the much-anticipated follow-up to the ruminating 2015 breakthrough of Tennessee singer/songwriter Julien Baker. While Sprained Ankle was recorded in a professional studio in Richmond, Virginia, it was with help from a friend who was interning there, and Baker, an 18-year-old college freshman at the time, was the sole performer. Unexpectedly -- to the songwriter -- it was picked up by 6131 Records and eventually made Billboard's Heatseekers Albums chart in 2016. She recorded 2017's Turn Out the Lights at the legendary Ardent Studios in Memphis, emerging with a sturdier sound and accompaniment that includes not only guitar and piano but also strings, woodwinds, and additional vocals. The album even opens with a brief chamber overture that both sets a melancholy tone and establishes the expanded sound. Still, it's an intimate, drums-free affair, one that emphasizes lyrics and raw emotion. The candid content and intense vocal delivery that