Adam Torres premieres video for "Juniper Arms" via NPR – new album Pearls Before Swine out on 9 Sept via Fat Possum
Premieres video for “JUNIPER ARMS” VIA NPR MUSIC
NEW ALBUM PEARLS TO SWINE OUT 9th SEPTEMBER 2016 VIA FAT POSSUM
Watch “Juniper Arms” here
“Just a minute into hearing his voice I knew I was listening to a unique and astonishing talent. Adam Torres’ voice is high, yearning and captivating.” – NPR Music
NPR has premiered the new video for “Juniper Arms” by Austin-based singer-songwriter ADAM TORRES, whose forthcoming new album Pearls To Swine is due out on Fat Possom on 9 September. The clip was directed by Brian Wiebe and features dancers Oren Porterfield and Jordan Moser from Ballet Austin. As Adam explained to NPR: “The main character in the video is a gardener in an unforgiving terrain that receives the aid of spirits (dancers) to help make juniper trees grow.”
Torres’ music is marked by his strikingly varied falsetto delivery inspired by traditional vocalists such as John Jacob Niles and Robbie Basho, whilst he continues the modern singer-songwriter tradition of Bon Iver, Damien Jurado, Bonnie Prince Billy, Fleet Foxes, Phosphorescent or The Cave Singers. Pearls to Swine is his first new album in ten years (following on from cult classic Nostra Nova) and was recorded over eight days in January at Austin’s Cacophony Recorders with co-producer and mixer Erik Wofford (Bill Callahan, Black Angels, M. Ward, Okkervil River). Laid directly to tape, there’s a natural, warm, and almost magical realism atmosphere to the songs – like a high-stakes live show captured in a fantastical setting, each its own uniquely crafted cinematic soundscape.
“Juniper Arms” follows the early June Stereogum premiere of lead album track “High Lonesome,” as well as the featuring of additional album track “Outlands” on the June 14th episode of NPR’s All Songs Considered.
Pearls To Swine will be released on September 9th, 2016 via Fat Possum and is available for pre-order in the label’s webstore: http://store.fatpossum.com/products/pearls-to-swine. Adam has also announced a lengthy US tour this autumn with his band, which features Swans’ Thor Harris (on conga drums, vibraphone, and percussion), Aisha Burns (violin), and Dailey Toliver (bass/piano).
There’s a persisting theme that threads through Adam’s own story as well as Pearls To Swine. Within the cosmos of the album, characters experience a sort of misadventure and persevere, casting light on the way life can lead you down a path that’s far from where you wanted to be. The album maps his complicated history as a songwriter and musician: it’s the sound of someone who discovered the value in his own devotion to music, and how writing and songs are extensions of his own journey. He embeds his own folklore within his high-lonesome sounding, deeply felt and moving brand of folk music.
To truly understand Pearls To Swine and Adam’s arrival on his current path, one has to start at the beginning. In 2006, the then 20-year-old released his idiosyncratic, varied, and beautiful debut album, Nostra Nova. A DIY self-release, the album became a closely-held, sleeper favorite in the close-knit music scene of Athens, OH and over the years grew to a ‘cult classic’-like status. But not long after its release, Adam turned his focus from pursuing music professionally to other interests: he returned to college; traveled, taught, and volunteered in South America; moved to Austin to attend graduate school; and spent two years working for the state of Texas on a project aimed at cleaning the water quality of the Rio Grande River in South Texas.
All the while, he never stopped playing music, writing songs, or performing. Having penned more than 100 songs since 2006, Adam quietly released his first music since Nostra Nova in 2012 through DC cassette-label DZ Tapes, which featured tape-recorded demos made inside the apartments he lived in during his time in Ecuador. In 2015, Nostra Novasaw a small reissue and finally achieved its due outside of its underground lore, receiving praise from outlets includingThe A.V. Club, Stereogum (“a stunner”), VICE (“beautiful, melancholy tunes”), Popmatters, All Music Guide, andFlavorwire.
www.facebook.com/adamtorresmusic
www.instagram.com/adamtorresmusic