It’s been more than five years since Memphis-born, formerly Nashville-based indie singer-songwriter Julien Baker released her third solo album, Little Oblivions. She’s certainly been busy in the interim, though, first reuniting with her supergroup boygenius for 2023 debut full-length The Record, which attracted a massive wave of new attention and fans, sent the group on a prominent tour, and nabbed them multiple Grammys. After that, Baker surprised us by forming a new alt-country band with fellow indie rocker and former Nashvillian, Torres, simply called Julien Baker & Torres, dropping debut LP Send a Prayer My Way last year, and playing a handful of shows, before ultimately cutting the trek short for health reasons. Since then, things have been a bit more quiet, but we’ve long expected Julien to return with a fourth album under her own name- and it appears she’s about to do just that.
Though we’d heard that Baker had left Nashville for Los Angeles a few years ago, residing with her partner and boygenius bandmate Lucy Dacus (Lucy’s latest solo record, Forever Is a Feeling, arrived last year, and the band’s third member, Phoebe Bridgers, released her long-awaited new one, Lost Weekend, last month), she has been spotted around town again lately- and we now know why. A new official artist account @julienbakerhq just launched on Instagram, teasing clips of the artist in the studio. Additionally, a new press photo has been shared, featuring a group shot of Julien, along with Calvin Lauber (who has engineered Julien’s prior work and played bass in her live backing band) and Matthew Gilliam (who, notably, was in Julien’s teen band Forrister, formerly The Star Killers, and also plays drums in her backing band). While this could be the soft launch of a project under a new name, it seems more likely that Baker has been working with these long-time collaborators, who also appear in the video clips, in the studio on her latest solo work, and has opted to perform live with them as a trio. Which brings us to the most exciting bit of news:
Announced just hours ago, Julien Baker will play a pop-up show tonight, Sept. 9 at The Blue Room at Third Man Records! Kate Teague has been tapped as support, the all ages performance starts at 8 p.m., and tickets are available at 11 a.m. CDT right here, and will certainly sell out fast. While no further info about what Baker will be performing has been announced, we think it’s safe to assume that fans will be treated to some of what she’s been working on in those studio clips.
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