Rising singer-songwriter Medium Build (Nick Carpenter) has teamed up with Julien Baker on new track ‘Yoke’. The track is the second single from Medium Build’s forthcoming EP, ‘Marietta’, due out November 15 via Slowplay/Island Records.
Nick Carpenter, a.k.a. Medium Build, and Baker have been friends for over a decade—since their college days at Middle Tennessee State—where they bonded over music and shared experiences of growing up queer in the Southern church. “Yoke” reflects on this experience of belonging and the pain of leaving behind a community that may not accept you. Given their long friendship, it’s fitting for Baker to feature on the track where they sing, “I gave them my youth, made some lifelong friends, who no longer acknowledge me,” capturing a deeply personal and cathartic moment in Carpenter’s work. See below for additional notes from both Carpenter and Baker about their relationship and working together.
Medium Build most recently shared the first taste of the ‘Marietta’ EP in the form of ‘Triple Marathon’. ‘Marietta’ is named after the town outside of Atlanta, Georgia where Carpenter grew up. The songs cover the central tenets of his time there: his parents looking for opportunity, his relationship with the church and the angst and longing of his adolescence. The images from the EP’s artwork were all shot at a series of hometown locations by Silken Weinberg (artistic director for Ethel Cain), including the street where Carpenter grew up and the abandoned Sears where his father once worked. “Marietta is more so a zoom out of my childhood,” explains Carpenter. “Extending grace to my family. To myself. I just wanna thank myself and my parents for surviving my childhood.”
Check it out, here
Having just wrapped his headline tour in the US, Medium Build’s 5-date UK tour kicks off in Manchester at Academy 3 on November 7th, taking in Glasgow, Birmingham and Bristol, before wrapping in London at Islington’s Assembly Hall on the 13th November. Full UK tour dates are below.
UK TOUR DATES
- Thursday November 7th – Manchester, Academy 3
- Saturday November 9th – Glasgow, Oran Mor
- Monday November 11th – Birmingham, Mama Roux’s
- Tuesday November 12th – Bristol, Thekla
- Wednesday November 13th – London, Islington Assembly Hall
