walking upstream…
Julien Baker
sourcesWikipedia
Julien Baker grew up in Memphis playing in a punk-leaning band before stepping out alone with 'Sprained Ankle' (2015), a stark record of voice, electric guitar, and little else that she recorded almost by accident. Her songs pair unsparing lyrics about faith, addiction, and self-doubt with arrangements that swell from near-silence to overwhelming climaxes, her looped guitar figures ringing out like hymns in an empty room. 'Turn Out the Lights' (2017) and 'Little Oblivions' (2021) widened the palette with piano and full-band force without softening the candor. A classically emo sensibility runs beneath the folk surface: the quiet-loud dynamics, the raw confessional register, the sense of a song as a place to say the unsayable.
the sound in question
2017
AppointmentsJulien Baker
walk the tributaries ↓
Elliott Smith1990s · Indie folk / Lo-fi / Indie rock
Baker has covered Elliott Smith and speaks of him as a lodestar; his model of the solo confessional — one voice, close-mic'd, layered against a spare guitar, singing about despair without melodrama — is the template beneath her early records.
listen: upstream & heresource: BrooklynVegan ↗
1997
Between the BarsElliott Smith
2015
Sprained AnkleJulien Baker
listen forPlay 'Between the Bars' before 'Sprained Ankle': the same intimate, near-whispered vocal set against fingerpicked guitar, a hard subject delivered gently enough that the melody can carry it.
Death Cab for Cutie2000s · Indie rock / Indie pop / Alternative rock / Emo
An avowed early favorite — Baker has covered them — Death Cab modeled how a plainspoken, melancholy lyric could ride patient, chiming indie-rock arrangements. Their fingerprint is on how her fuller-band material builds emotional weight without raising its voice much.
listen: upstream & heresource: BrooklynVegan ↗
2005
I Will Follow You into the DarkDeath Cab for Cutie
2017
Turn Out the LightsJulien Baker
listen forCompare 'I Will Follow You into the Dark' with 'Turn Out the Lights': both let a single quiet melodic idea accumulate over a slow build, mortality and devotion sung in an unhurried, conversational tone.
Conor Oberst2000s · Indie folk / Alternative country / Indie rock
Baker names Bright Eyes among her formative influences and has shared stages with Conor Oberst; his quavering, diaristic songwriting — faith, doubt, and self-laceration set to spare folk-rock — runs directly parallel to hers.
listen: upstream & here
2008
Danny CallahanConor Oberst
2021
Faith HealerJulien Baker
listen forSet Oberst's 'Danny Callahan' beside 'Faith Healer': both carry a trembling, unguarded vocal and lyrics that wrestle openly with belief and damage, the singer sounding like they might not make it through the take.