Stream: Maria Taylor, ‘Free Song’

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Maria Taylor
Maria Taylor

Dating back to her days in Azure Ray, Maria Taylor has always had one of those voices you’d be happy to hear just singing names and numbers from the phone book. That she has consistently produced a decade’s worth of intelligent, nuanced folk and pop songs is evidence there is some kind of musical deity at work in the universe. “In the Next Life,” her sixth solo album (out Dec. 9 on her own Flower Moon Records), finds Taylor doing what she does so well every couple of years — taking inventory, and using it all to project the future. “I rummaged through my life, taking parts of my past lives and intertwining them with my current life,” says Taylor, an Alabama native whose current life includes a husband, two kids and a place in L.A.. “I’ve imagined my life beyond what is now. I’ve taken all that I’ve learned both musically and lyrically (with the help of my incredibly talented friends) and put it into this record. I kept asking myself, ‘If I die tomorrow, what would I want my last record to say?'”

Taylor’s talented friends includes some of the Saddle Creek Records extended family, including Nik Freitas (Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band), who produced the album. Oberst himself guests on the first single “If Only,” and the album’s credits also include Joshua Radin, Macey Taylor, Jake Bellows, Louis Schefano, Morgan Nagler and Tiffany Osborn. “In the Next Life’s” 10 poignant vignettes wrap with the closer “Pretty Scars” (which features Radin), a musical timeline of Taylor mileposts that’s breathtaking in its intimacy. (In a recent cameo at the Bootleg Theater, you could almost hear heartbeats it was so quiet when Taylor performed it). The full album is streaming on NPR; it’s well worth reaching the end.

||| Stream: “Free Song”

||| Watch: Director Liz Bretz’s video for “If Only”

||| Live: Maria Taylor headlines the Troubadour on Dec. 11, joined by Ben Lee and Cillie Barnes. Tickets.