Julien Baker and TORRES Announce First Album Together

Send a Prayer My Way arrives April 18 via Matador. Listen to "Sylvia" below.

Julien Baker and TORRES Announce First Album Together

In December 2024, Julien Baker and TORRES revealed their first official song together, “Sugar in the Tank,” after first performing it together at a Webster Hall gig in New York two months prior. Produced by Sarah Tudzin (aka illuminati hotties), “Sugar in the Tank” is a great country song (thanks, in part, to Aisha Burns’s fiddle playing); Baker and TORRES have strong writing and singing chemistry. It was last year’s version of Sharon Van Etten and Angel Olsen’s “Like I Used To”—two of our very best singer-songwriters colliding when we really needed it. Some collabs feel like novelties, but “Sugar in the Tank” packs the right kind of wallop.

Today, the duo have announced their proper debut album together: Send a Prayer My Way. We’re in an area when stud country and line dancing is becoming more and more popular in metropolitan areas, so this record’s planned arrival feels terrifically of the times. And, considering that Baker and TORRES are among our best living songwriters, this country pivot should almost certainly cater well to each of their strengths. If “Sugar in the Tank” was any indication, then my prediction might be correct.

Send a Prayer My Way is set to release on April 18 via Matador Records, and new single “Sylvia” is streaming now. “The morning I went to pick up my dog Sylvia from an upstate shelter, I was at home making my coffee and I turned on WFMU and Dolly Parton’s ‘Cracker Jack’ was on,” TORRES says. “I burst into tears—it felt like the universe was telling me she was going to be mine (Sylvia was only meant to be a foster). I remember thinking that I’d love to write a song like that, a song that people could feel in their chest within five seconds of turning on the radio, because anyone who has ever had the honor of sharing a home with a beloved pet knows that a pet is family—they’re the best friends you could ever have.”

Last year, TORRES dropped her sixth studio album, What an enormous room, and Julien Baker is coming off of a run for boygenius that included multiple Grammy wins and an album that Paste enjoyed quite a bit in 2023.

Watch the music video for “Sylvia” and check out the Send a Prayer My Way artwork and tracklist below.

Send a Prayer My Way Artwork:

Send a Prayer My Way Tracklist:
Dirt
The Only Marble I’ve Got Left
Sugar in the Tank
Bottom of a Bottle
Downhill Both Ways
No Desert Flower
Tape Runs Out
Off the Wagon
Tuesday
Showdown
Sylvia
Goodbye Baby

 
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