Julien Baker Funeral Pyre

Julien Baker signs to Matador, releases new single, reissuing debut LP

Julien Baker continues to rise thanks to the strength of her 2015 debut album Sprained Ankle and her mesmerizing live shows. It’s now been announced that she’s signed to big indie label Matador Records! Congrats Julien. Awesome news.

Her first release for the label is the new single, “Funeral Pyre,” a song that you may remember she debuted in an NPR Tiny Desk Concert last year. The studio version is just as gorgeous as the version she played on NPR. Check it out below. Here’s what she tells NPR about it in a new interview:

Obviously, drinking gasoline incurs bodily harm on you, but also, being an accessory to that kind of behavior and having to decide — it incurs harm upon you, too. And then, are you responsible for permitting that? If you stay, are you responsible for permitting it? And if you leave, are you responsible for not intervening? If you intervene, are you out of your bounds? Everything about the song is figuring out how you should act in your level of responsibility for your own health and to others in the dynamic of a relationship, which is a difficult lesson to learn.

I feel like I would have put myself into an unfavorable or unhealthy position for this person and maybe recognizing from an outside perspective that that destructivism is a more healthy thing to do than to stay in it for the sort of, romantic, admirable belief that subjecting yourself to this kind of sacrificial, fatuous love would be more of the right thing to do.

“Funeral Pyre” will be out as a 7″ on March 17 with “Distant Solar System,” an unheard song from the Sprained Ankle sessions, on the flip. Matador will also reissue Sprained Ankle, originally released on 6131 Records, that day (but not in the US or Australia).

Julien has tour dates as well, including a January run with Ben Gibbard, the Shovels & Rope-curated High Water festival (with The Shins), and more. All dates are listed below.

Julien Baker — 2017 Tour Dates
01/18 Milwaukee, WI @ Pabst Theater w/ Ben Gibbard
01/19 Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall w/ Ben Gibbard
01/20 Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall w/ Ben Gibbard
02/17 Davenport, IA @ GAS Feed & Seed Fest
02/18 Champaign, IL @ The Accord w/ Thunder Dreamer
04/22-04/23 N. Charleston, SC @ High Water Festival w/ Avett Brothers, The Shins, Shovels & Rope, Dawes, Lucius, Charles Bradley
05/24 Jena, DE @ Trafo
05/25 Berlin, DE @ Kantine am Berghain
05/28 Hamburg, DE @ Aalhaus
05/29 Munster, DE @ Pension Schmidt
05/30 Heidelberg, DE @ Karlstorbahnhof
05/31 Munich, DE @ Milla
06/05 London, UK @ Bush Hall
06/06 Manchester, UK @ Deaf Institute
06/09 Porto, PT @ Primavera Sound
06/10 Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso