Julien Baker + Eskimeaux: Rough Trade New York (Photos)

All by her lonesome, Julien Baker captivated the sold out capacity crowd at Rough Trade with her plaintive songs.

Sachyn Mital / 1 February 2016

As one of PopMatters‘ “Musical Hopes to Break Out in 2016“, Julien Baker is unsurprisingly a very talented artist. What might be surprising to some is that her music is regularly somber and occasionally devastating emotionally. Her sparse debut album Sprained Ankle, released in October 2015, has tough songs that deal with loneliness and depression. This winter, Baker has been generating a lot of buzz on the back of her emotional solo performances.

Baker had lined up two dates in New York, one at the Mercury Lounge and one at Rough Trade, and both sold out. A video of her covering Elliot Smith’s “Ballad of Big Nothing” is below — but she didn’t repeat it at Rough Trade, instead keeping to her electric guitar, after a set from the enjoyable opener Eskimeaux. Before Baker began, I overheard someone in the front row suggest he might projectile cry on everyone in the front. I can’t say for sure if he did, but the expectations for tears were real. And fans were in for an extra treat as Baker introduced one new song at Rough Trade, something Eskimeaux had also done.

Eskimeaux