Ohms

After the release of Three Futures in 2017—and an unceremonious record-deal termination shortly thereafter (4AD Records)—Mackenzie Scott (TORRES) nearly quit music. Calling the act of chasing commercial success a "delusional pursuit", she took three years to read, work, and otherwise climb her way "out of a tunnel", all the while reflecting on the future's veiled designs. The result of Scott's reflections is Silver Tongue, a new, self-produced work out now from Merge Records. The album—Scott's cleanest, most mature release to date—marks a new level of conviction for the entire TORRES project. Its nine songs, all evocative and transporting, strive toward a new vocabulary for connection, confidence, and queer love.

Lyrically, Silver Tongue traces the difficulties (and rewards) of trying to create a future tense with a new partner. In effect, it explores a geography of intimacy that many American 20-somethings are themselves trying to navigate. "Are you planning to love me through the bars of a golden cage?" she asks on the album's opener, "Good Scare". "You make me want to write the country song folks here in New York get a kick out of" ("Good Scare.") "I've saved records of your tenderness that you say don't exist." ("Records of Your Tenderness", a rhythmically intricate song that rhymes, subtly, with Björk's "History of Touches".) -- Jonathan Leal