4 weeks ago
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Over the past few months, Julien Baker has been playing solo shows and debuting new songs. She’s also been helping out on other people’s tracks. She appeared on Touché Amoré’s song “Goodbye For Now.” She played guitar on jasmine.4.t’s “Elephant,” a song that Baker produced with her boygenius bandmates. On the upcoming TRAИƧA compilation, Baker will cover Belle And Sebastian with Calvin Lauber, SOAK, and Quinn Christopherson. Now, she’s also on a new song with singer-songwriter Medium Build.
Medium Build is Nick Carpenter, a musician who splits his time between Nashville and Anchorage and who has a bunch of albums to his credit. Carpenter and Baker have been friends since their DIY-band days, and Baker guests on “Yoke,” from Medium Build’s upcoming Marietta EP. It’s a sad, haunted song about growing up queer in the South, and Baker’s vocals add distant backup harmonies. Here’s what Nick Carpenter says about Julien Baker in a press release:
I met Julien Baker outside a venue in Murfreesboro, Tennessee when she was 17. She and her band, the Star Killers, were on a bill with my old band, and they were too young to be inside during the other sets, so they waited outside, huddled around with giant X’s on their hands. Julien played a Telecaster with a rainbow guitar strap and practically unhinged her jaw when she screamed. All of us in the room knew there was something special going on with her and her boys. They had passion and treated each other like family. The music was human and angry and hopeful and sad.
We became friends, and the Star Killers invited us on our first tour. I learned that Julien was a person of deep faith, albeit complicated by queerness and addiction and family trauma. I felt a kinship with her. I had been raised in Evangelical spaces myself, and by that time, I was losing my faith. Julien stood out to me as the realest Christian I had ever met. Someone who read the Bible but loved sinners. We didn’t agree on everything, but we agreed on love. And we shared a deep love of music. We bonded over Circa Survive and Pedro The Lion. We shared songs with one another and pushed the other towards more honesty in our songs, the ugly kind of honesty that we were drawn to.
When Julien’s first solo record blew up and she was whisked into the limelight, none of us were surprised. I was excited — and definitely jealous. She was living out the dreams of our scene. She was the one who made it. Years later, after my first tour, I texted her an apology. I said this job sucks and people treat you weird. I’m so sorry I ever coveted your spot. I should have checked in more.
Over the past decade, Julien and I have shared a drift in and out of faith and sobriet — two of the things we’ve always met on. When I sent her this song about deconstructing my relationships with church and the people around it, I knew she would understand. I’d been scared in the past to release songs this niche and heavy, worried about the people from my past I would offend as I heal my inner child. Julien’s presence on this track feels like a friend holding your hand as you share your testimony or open up at an AA meeting. This industry is lonely and the value of long-lasting friendships cannot be overstated, but having a friend in this business that you look up to, admire and adore is a godsend (pun intended).
I love you JB. Thanks for showing me the path so many times and allowing me to walk with you.
And here’s what Baker says about Carpenter:
When you meet Nick Carpenter (AKA Medium Build) he will probably make you laugh… and then make you think. Carpenter’s is a mind hungry for beauty, for music, for understanding; fiercely curious, determined, but importantly never above laughing at himself. It’s that lack of self-seriousness which gives his songs a uniform earnestness, the freedom to speak in new styles, to try on a cast of costumes, vary the art of the telling without sacrificing the story. His music reports from the borders of the absurd with humor and grace — with allowance for, of all things, fun — unafraid of ugliness but always begging the merit of levity. May you enjoy the talent of one of the most gifted, wisest fools I know, as I have.
Hear “Yoke” below.
The Marietta EP is out 11/15 on Slowplay/Island.
English (US) · 