• News

• All

Feb 26, 2021 By Mark Redfern Photography by Alysse Gafkjen

Acclaimed singer/songwriter Julien Baker has released a new album, Little Oblivions, today via Matador. Now that the album’s out you can stream the whole thing below. Also, earlier this week we posted our rave review of the album. Read that here.

Baker released her last album, Turn Out the Lights, back in 2017 via Matador, her first for the label. It was our Album of the Week and more importantly it was #2 on our Top 100 Albums of 2017 list. Little Oblivions is her third studio album (her debut was 2015’s Sprained Ankle). Little Oblivions was recorded in December 2019 and January 2020 in Baker’s hometown of Memphis, Tennessee. Calvin Lauber engineered the album and Craig Silvey mixed it, both of whom worked on Turn Out the Lights. Baker plays most of the instruments on the album, which a press release says fleshes out and expands her previously stripped back sound.

When Little Oblivions was announced in October, Baker shared “Faith Healer” via a video for it. “Faith Healer” was one of our Songs of the Week. Then Baker performed “Faith Healer” on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Then she shared another song from the album, “Hardline,” via an animated video for the propulsive single (which made it to #1 on our Songs of the Week list). Baker also did a session for Seattle radio station KEXP. Then she shared the next single from the album, “Favor,” which featured backing vocals from Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus, her bandmates in the supergroup boygenius. Then she shared the album’s fourth single, “Heatwave,” which is about trying not to worry about trivial things. Baker was also on Sirius XM for an XMU Live Session and performed a cover of Radiohead’s “Everything In Its Right Place” (from their 2000 album Kid A).

Baker also previously announced that today at 2 p.m. EST NPR Music will be hosting a listening party for the album on YouTube. It will feature Baker, alongside journalist Jewly Hight and Mackenzie Scott (aka TORRES), in discussion about the album.

It was also previously announced that Baker will be launching a new livestream concert to be held at Nashville’s Analog on March 25. The performance will take place via STAGED, a virtual concert series created by Audiotree. It will be aired three separate times, at 8 p.m. AEDT, 7 p.m. GMT, and 9 p.m. EDT. Tickets start at $15 and are available here.

In 2018 Baker also teamed up with fellow singer/songwriters Lucy Dacus and Phoebe Bridgers to form supergroup boygenius, whose self-titled debut EP was released via Matador.

Read our interview with Baker and boygenius.

Read our 2017 cover story interview with Baker.

Also read our 2017 cover story bonus Q&A with Baker.

Read our rave 9/10 review of Turn Out the Lights.

Read our 2016 interview with Baker and our 2015 Artist Survey interview with her.

Support Under the Radar on Patreon.