Torres Explains The Fear And Desire Behind Her Most Self-Determined Record Yet

Before she wrote Silver Tongue, out later this month, Torres' Mackenzie Scott stopped writing music altogether. After releasing three albums of searing, searching guitar rock, Scott says she needed to reassess. It's a "delusional pursuit," as she calls it, to try to make a living as a musician right now. Did she even still want to do it? What was even worth writing about?

Scott found herself "emotionally overloaded" — drained by the global political scene, romantic heartache and a family health scare. And in April of 2018, she was dropped by 4AD, the label that had released 2017's Three Futures and with whom she was supposed to have had a three-album deal. On Twitter, she said the label dropped her for "not being commercially successful enough."

"I wish them all the best," she said in a tweet. "Also, f*** the music industry."

Eventually, the turmoil was enough to prompt Scott back into writing music. The resulting album, is the first Scott produced by herself, for reasons both practical (it's expensive to pay a producer) and personal. More so than ever before, she says, she was able to enter the studio with a precise vision for what she wanted to