TRACK OF THE DAY: TORRES – ‘Sprinter’ – Listen

TRACK OF THE DAY: TORRES - 'Sprinter' - Listen

Following on from unveiling ‘Strange Hellos’, the lead track of her forthcoming second album Sprinter (as well as its darkly mesmeric accompanying video), today Nashville-via-Brooklyn’s Mackenzie Scott – aka TORRES – returns with the record’s titular cut. You can hear it BELOW:

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On May 18th, Brooklyn’s TORRES – aka Mackenzie Scott – returns with her second full-length LP, Sprinter, via Partisan Records (John Grant, Eagulls, The Dismemberment Plan, Sylvan Esso); the follow-up to the Nashville-bred songwriter’s acclaimed self-titled debut album.
Following that primal introduction to Scott’s introspective but relatable musical world, TORRES pushes herself to even noisier extremes on Sprinter: a punishing self-examination of epic spiritual and musical proportions.

Scott escaped the confines of her churning mind, however, in order to find herself by recording Sprinter in the market town of Bridport in Dorset, England; and then at the Bristol studio of Portishead’s Adrian Utley. With his guitar riffs and synthesizers lingering in the background like a lowland mist and PJ Harvey’s Robert Ellis and Ian Olliver on rhythm—the two fortuitously reuniting 23 years after the release of Dry, and in Scott’s 23rd year of living—she crafted a “space cowboy” record.

“That’s as simply as I can say it,” says Scott, who cites inspirations as diverse as Funkadelic and Nirvana, Ray Bradbury and Joan Didion. “I wanted something that very clearly stemmed from my Southern conservative roots but that sounded futuristic and space-y at the same time.”

It’s a balancing act that Scott manages to perfection across Sprinter’s nine tracks, a prime example being the record’s contagious sixth track, ‘Cowboy Guilt’, which juxtaposes the contrast of Deep South conservatism with future sounds, juxtaposing George W. Bush parodies with wearing one’s Sunday best, bouncing on a mechanically whimsical melody. On the very next track, ‘Ferris Wheel’, she’ll be building to crescendos of longing atop squalls of ambient noise and submerged guitar chords. It’s a versatile suite, sure, but one that never loses track of its focus: constantly mining the depths of self, fearlessly melding genres and, ultimately, facing down the darkness.

Sprinter is available from May 18th on Partisan Records.

1. Strange Hellos
2. New Skin
3. Son, You Are No Island
4. A Proper Polish Welcome
5. Sprinter
6. Cowboy Guilt
7. Ferris Wheel
8. The Harshest Light
9. The Exchange

Xsnoize Author
Mark Millar is the founder of XS Noize and looks after the daily running of the website as well as hosting interviews for the weekly XS Noize Podcast. Mark's favourite album is Achtung Baby by U2.

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