Foto-© Alysse Gafkjen

Nachdem die großartige Songwriterin Julien Baker (die auch zusammen mit Phoebe Bridgers und ihrer Label-Kollegin Lucy Dacus das Supertrio boygenius bildet) zuletzt ihr neues Album Little Oblivions für den 26. Februar via Matador Records ankündigt hat, folgt nun die zweite Single Hardline daraus! Die ersten beiden Alben der US-amerikanischen Songwriterin sind immer noch große Herzensalben für uns und umso mehr freuen wir uns auf das neuste Werk, das auch gleich einen volleren und breitwandigen Band-Sound verspricht! Denn Baker, die bisher hauptsächlich an der Gitarre und dem Klavier zu hören war, fügte dieses Mal noch Bass, Drums, Synthesizer, Banjo und Mandoline ihrem Soundkosmos hinzu und spielte den Großteil davon selbst ein. Wie von Julien Baker gewohnt sind ihre Lyrics hochpersönlich und zeugen von der außergewöhnlichen Beobachtungsgabe der Songwriterin.

Über Hardline berichtet Julien: “A few years ago I started collecting travel ephemera again with a loose idea of making a piece of art with it. I had been touring pretty consistently since 2015 and had been traveling somuch that items like plane tickets and hotel keycards didn’t have much novelty anymore. So I saved all my travel stuff and made a little collage of a house and a van out of it. I wanted to incorporate it into the record and when we were brainstorming ideas for videos we came across Joe Baughman and really liked his work so we reached out with the idea of making a stop-motion video that had similar aesthetic qualities as the house I built did. I don’t know why I have the impulse to write songs or make tiny sculptures out of plane tickets. But here it is anyway: a bunch of things I’ve collected and carried with me that I’ve re-organized into a new shape.”

Gleichzeitig erschien auch das passende Video zur neuen Single, in Form eines wunderschönen Animationsvideo, über das der Regisseur Josh Baughman sagt: “Man, even after having spent 600 hours immersed in ‘Hardline’ and having listened to it thousands of times, I am still moved by it. It was a fun and ambitious challenge creating something that could accompany such a compelling song. The style of the set design, inspired by a sculpture that Julien created, was especially fun to work in. I loved sifting through magazines, maps, and newspapers from the 60s and 70s and finding the right colors, shapes, and quotes to cover almost every surface in the video.”