BOY SCOUTS NEW ALBUM WAYFINDER OUT NOW

by the partae October 4, 2021

written by the partae October 4, 2021

Photo Credit: Tonje Thilesen

“Boy Scouts’ Taylor Vick makes music that thrives on intimacy” – San Francisco Chronicle

“Her music is defined by its warm tenderness—twangy guitars, cooing vocals, supportive keys—but she doesn’t necessarily want to be your caretaker.” – Paste

“Though Boy Scouts’ backing tracks are hazy and dreamlike, calling to mind tour mate Jay Som, Vick’s writing is direct, sharp, more bee-sting than butterfly.” – Pitchfork

Called “gorgeously bittersweet” and “immediately compelling” by Stereogum, Boy Scouts new album ‘Wayfinder’ is out now. The project of Oakland-based LGBTQ artist Taylor Vick, ‘Wayfinder’ has a warm, expansive style that recalls the raw punctures of Lucinda Williams and Alex G and shows Vick to be a fearless seeker shedding light on the unanswerable.

LISTEN TO WAYFINDER

Recently Vick spoke with FLOOD Magazine who debuted the latest track “A Lot To Ask” – a song that “juxtaposes introverted neurosis with a warm, golden instrumental that feels like it emerged straight from the navy blue Pacific surf,” Flood said – and chatted with Taylor about its themes.

Read more HERE.

In the thick of lockdowns, both Vick and longtime collaborator Stephen Steinbrink independently found themselves wanting to work on a new Boy Scouts album. They decided to pursue it despite logistical challenges, traveling up to Anacortes, Washington to record at The Unknown. Working slowly, they invited a roster of collaborators to join them over time, including Vick’s brother Travis and Jay Som’s Melina Duterte. The effects of working in a new space and with more people can be heard across the bold, assured ‘Wayfinder’, which takes place across a wider scale than Vick’s prior work. Strands of slide guitar, organ, and strings ring under her affable, expressive voice, bolstering layers and layers of harmony.

“Why are we alive? Is there a point to any of this? Have I done this before? I was thinking about these questions like that, just playing with these ideas and being curious, ” Vick says of the album’s themes. “I lost that curiosity for many years, and it came back to me in the last year. I started to wonder about these types of things again. It feels better to have curiosity for life.”

These queries can sprout from easy, ponderous conversation just like everyday settings can harbour sudden turns of healing, even growth. On ‘Wayfinder’, Vick digs out that potential in even the most ordinary scenes. “Praying to the sidewalk like it holds my fate / Scream into the gutter so it knows my name,” she sings on the album’s closing track “Model Homes.” She hurls her questions at the ground, and they ricochet squarely at the sky, which, in its way, answers.