Bridgers released her debut album in 2017 as a relatively unknown singer-songwriter living in Los Angeles. A little over two years later, she’s become an internationally lauded musician with three acclaimed bodies of work to her name: her solo debut, Stranger In The Alps, the boygenius EP with Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus in 2018, and Better Oblivion Community Center, a surprise collaboration with Conor Oberst, in 2019.
Bridgers is a singular talent, and also the rare artist with enough humour to deconstruct the tired heuristics of a meteoric rise. Punisher, written and recorded between the summer of 2018 and the autumn of 2019, cements her as one of the most irresistibly clever and tenderly prolific songwriters of our era. Returning to work with her Stranger In The Alps collaborators Tony Berg and Ethan Gruska, Bridgers - who co-produced the boygenius EP and Better Oblivion Community Center album - stepped into the role of co-producer for Punisher and has drawn from the same tight-knit group of musicians who appeared on her debut as well as those she has worked with since. The album includes Bridgers’ band of Marshall Vore (drums), Harrison Whitford (guitar), Emily Restas (bass) and Nick White (piano) as well as performances from Conor Oberst, Lucy Dacus, Julien Baker, Blake Mills, Jenny Lee Lindberg, Christian Lee Hutson, Nick Zinner, legendary drummer Jim Keltner, and Bright Eyes’ Nathaniel Walcott on horns. Punisher was mixed by Mike Mogis, who also mixed Stranger In The Alps.
Release: June 19, 2020, Dead Oceans/Inertia
Words: Dead Oceans