Description

A person whose words are so potent that they cause the people and beings around them to vibrate is said to have a silver tongue. Its apt, then, that Mackenzie Scottmdashwho has spent the 2010s making boundary pushing pop music under her TORRES monikermdashhas chosen to call her fourth album, and first release on Merge, just that. Recorded at ODeer in Brooklyn, New York, Silver Tongue is a fullscale realization of the world Scott has created over TORRES last few albums. Even when singing in more subdued tones, Scotts voice is fervent, her lyrics stirring and unyielding as she draws from both the divine and the everyday. Its also the first TORRES record produced solely by Scott. After having shared production duties on her first three albums, the latter two alongside PJ Harvey collaborator Rob Ellis, she found the process liberating I made exactly the record I want, and it feels very me. Silver Tongue fastidiously chronicles the impulses that make up desire from the dreamy first blushes of infatuation through the slightly terrifying wonder that accompanies connection with another. In between, Scott wrestles with the highs and lows of what being in love might mean over heady guitars and swirling synths. While potent vocal hooks punctuate songs like the sparkling Dressing America, which combines New Wave glitter with hovering frustration, and the brooding Good Grief, which gently pokes at the idea of fetishized sadness, the knottiness lurking underneath reflects Scotts realtime processing of her emotions while making the record.Silver Tongues musical world is vast and at times seemingly infinite. Edgeoftheworld synths add gravity to the vulnerability of Two of Everything, and refracted guitars offer a gnarled counterpoint to Scotts increased determination at the end of Last Forest. On Gracious Day, one of TORRES most forthright love songs, Scotts voice hovers over a starlit landscape in a way that transcends the mundane and enters the otherworldly as she sings. TORRES music has long navigated the space between the physical and the metaphysical, and Silver Tongue faces that conflict headon, examining the ways in which the actions of others can stir up deepseated feelings and seemingly alter the space in which one exists.Both LPs include album download. Torres Vinyl is available for home delivery from Vinyl Records London, only £30 +P&P