Sound Advice: TORRES Moves in Her Own Way

TORRES (aka Mackenzie Scott) continues to move in curious directions on her sixth full-length studio album, What an enormous room , jumping from bombastic electro dirges to acoustic-driven atmospherics with equal dexterity. Album opener “Happy man’s shoes” sounds like English doomsday outfit Clinic fronted by Alison Goldfrapp, an effortless melding highlighted by an oddly spooky spoken-word section in which TORRES reveals, “I’ve got a way of not seeing the dead.”

There’s an operatic quality to TORRES’ approach no matter the tone or theme of a song. Take “Life as we don’t know it,” a terse, driving tune fueled by its dense bass and drums as TORRES ruminates on what seems like a troubled relationship with a certain entity: “Each time I looked for God, I drank a wave down every time,” which is immediately followed by, “Don’t think I could have been forgiven/If the ocean took us both/Yes, it’s true we’re drowning together/But we’re so alone.” It recalls an unholy union of PJ Harvey and Garbage’s Shirley Manson.

Such subject matter shouldn’t be a surprise coming from a self-described “Baptist girl” from Macon, Ga., who more than a decade ago jumped from studying musical composition at Belmont University in Nashville to accomplished songwriter and performer with more ease than is typical.

Album closer “Songbird forever” floats by via twinkling piano and literal birds chirping in the background as TORRES gently delivers what could be seen as her artistic credo: “I am your king/I am your queen/I am everything in between.”

“As a person, I’m changing all the time,” TORRES said in a recent interview with Alternative Press . “I think we all are. I feel like a different person every day, in a way. I would say for me, the music that I make is a reflection of those kinds of constant changes. In the past, I used music as a tool to feel less alone, and now I use it more as a tool to try and help other people feel less alone.”

TORRES plays Woodward Theater at 8 p.m. on July 19. More info: woodwardtheater.com .

This story is featured in CityBeat's July 10 print edition.