Julien Baker has announced her third studio album Little Oblivions, which will arrive on Feb. 26 via Matador Records. In conjunction with the announcement, Baker has revealed the album’s lead track “Faith Healer” alongside its music video.
Baker commented on the new single:
Put most simply, I think that “Faith Healer” is a song about vices, both the obvious and the more insidious ways that they show up in the human experience. I started writing this song 2 years ago and it began as a very literal examination of addiction. For awhile, I only had the first verse, which is just a really candid confrontation of the cognitive dissonance a person who struggles with substance abuse can feel— the overwhelming evidence that this substance is harming you, and the counterintuitive but very real craving for the relief it provides. When I revisited the song I started thinking about the parallels between the escapism of substance abuse and the other various means of escapism that had occupied a similar, if less easily identifiable, space in my psyche.
There are so many channels and behaviors that we use to placate discomfort unhealthily which exist outside the formal definition of addiction. I (and so many other people) are willing to believe whomever— a political pundit, a preacher, a drug dealer, an energy healer— when they promise healing, and how that willingness, however genuine, might actually impede healing.
Watch the “Faith Healer” video, directed by Daniel Henry, below. Keep scrolling to revisit Baker’s 2016 Paste studio session and to see the Little Oblivions album artwork and tracklist.
Little Oblivions Album Artwork
Little Oblivions Tracklist
01. Hardline
02. Heatwave
03. Faith Healer
04. Relative Fiction
05. Crying Wolf
06. Bloodshot
07. Ringside
08. Favor
09. Song in E
10. Repeat
11. Highlight Reel
12. Ziptie
