Torres is the self-titled debut of 22-year old Nashville native, Mackenzie Scott. Recording as Torres, Scott’s most immediately striking asset is her voice. It conveys an urgency and world-weariness that belies the relative youth of its owner, at once evincing marked rawness and grizzled beauty. Torres’ songs, musically, are odes to austerity, with sparse instrumentation and economic chord structures. Much of their power derives from often ambiguous lyrics and Scott’s earnest, often heartbreaking delivery. Each word is delivered as if Scott’s life depended on it, the end result of which is a collection of songs that carry with them an emotional heft that’s made achingly apparent mere moments into the album.
Torres’ songs range from folk-strained indie and Americana to indie-rock and gorgeous, tempered, insular anthems, placing her in the company of such talents as PJ Harvey, Cat Power and Feist. Torres was recorded mostly in single live-band takes, with its songs afforded the time and space to breathe and unfurl. The ten songs present typically clock in at around four minutes with a few in excess of six, though seldom does a song ever feel as if it’s been stretched too thin or too far. The longest of these songs is “November Baby”, on which Scott makes use of the kind of gorgeous, tragic imagery that soon becomes a hallmark of the album. “This skin hangs on me like a lampshade/ Keeping all my light at bay”, she sings atop a melancholy guitar phrase that, if not for the intermittent groans of a distant bass line, would mark the song’s only instrumentation. The effect is devastating.
“Honey” is propelled forward in fits and starts by a preoccupied drum beat and dog-eared guitar arpeggio, with Scott’s vocal degrading as the song progresses until it’s no more than a distorted wail by the song’s end. It’s one of many subtle post-production effects put to good use throughout the album, the most effective of which comes at the conclusion of “Chains”. As the song creeps towards catharsis, carried by the dull thud of a heartbeat and scraped guitar strings, an abrupt snip of the tape violently stops it dead in its tracks before it can reach wherever it was headed. It’s a moment that continues to startle even when you know it’s coming.
“Moon & Back” showcases Torres’ considerable talents as a songwriter as she assumes the role of a mother addressing the baby she was forced to give up – “I’m writing to you from 1991/ The year I gave you to a mama with a girl and son”. Scott is not old enough to be the mother (she is however, the right age to be the daughter) but it’s incredibly easy to forget that, given the sincerity with which she sings those words, bursting with regret and defensiveness, not knowing which emotion should win out. The song paints a picture of a woman in quiet turmoil and does so with seemingly little effort.
“Don’t Run Away, Emilie” is a song that feels designed to break your heart and move on before you could ever hope to know why. It features pretty piano keys, lush strings, xylophone and gorgeous guitar; but more than anything, it’s Scott’s fractured, pensive vocal that makes the song what it is. “Come To Terms” employs several layers of acoustic guitar and tackles a doomed relationship (“I’m gonna come to terms/ Before I have to”); “Jealousy & I” is ethereal and sparse, with its guitar treated by an echo effect that sounds as if it’s been touched by the hands of Eno; and “When Winter’s Over” wouldn’t sound out of place on a Broken Social Scene album.
Torres comes to an end with “Waterfall”. “The rocks beneath, they bare their teeth/ They conspire to set me free” sings Scott, as guitars shimmer and the echoes of an angelic choir humming can just about be made out somewhere in the periphery. The album ends before we can know if she jumps.