Julien Baker Shares ‘Hardline’ from New Album Out 2/26, Covers Soundgarden’s ‘Fell On Black Days’ for KEXP

On Feb. 26, singer/songwriter Julien Baker will release her third full-length album, Little Oblivions, via Matador.

The follow-up to Baker’s acclaimed 2017 record Turn Out the Lights, it has now been previewed with a pair of tracks.

Click here to pre-order Little Oblivions from our Rock Cellar Store. 

On Wednesday, Baker premiered the album’s opening track, the sweeping “Hardline,” which includes lyrics like this, paired with crashing drums and an enveloping rhythm:

Start asking for forgiveness in advance
For all the future things I will destroy
That way I can ruin everything

Said Baker of the music video’s concept in a statement:

“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 so much 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.”

thank you to the good folks at KEXP for having me back on and to the incomparable DJ CHERYL (@djcherylwaters) for the lovely & thoughtful conversation ❤️ https://t.co/O5izFwC0Nm

— Julien Baker (@julienrbaker) January 13, 2021

Julien Baker is also the focus of a new KEXP at Home segment, including an interview with DJ Cheryl Waters and a four-song performance that ends with a cover of Soundgarden‘s “Fell on Black Days.” Take a look:

“Hardline” joins the previously debuted single “Faith Healer” as pre-release previews of the record:

Baker has enjoyed a rise in prominence in recent years for her solo albums, as well as the formation of boygenius in 2018, a project that finds her teaming up with Lucy Dacus and Phoebe Bridgers. The trio’s EP and tour dates increased her profile even more, helping establish Baker as one of the most promising singer/songwriters of the era.

The track listing for Little Oblivions:

1. Hardline
2. Heatwave
3. Faith Healer
4. Relative Fiction
5. Crying Wolf
6. Bloodshot
7. Ringside
8. Favor
9. Song in E
10. Repeat
11. Highlight Reel
12. Ziptie