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Torres

TORRES and AERO FLYNN at the Garrison (1197 Dundas West), Saturday (May 23), 8:30 pm. $13.50. rotate.com, soundscapesmusic.com, ticketfly.com


Mackenzie Scott, the woman behind the din of Torres, is only 24, but her preoccupation with the aging process and her own mortality has been ramping up with each passing year, thanks in part to seeing her parents getting older. 

“I guess to cope with that inevitability, I’m focused on the future and what’s going to happen when my body rots and dies,” she says with a laugh over the phone from a gig in Los Angeles.

She also copes by exploring life’s fleetingness on Sprinter, “more cosmic” in scope than her debut record and a ferocious, intense collection of on-point alt rock. It’s a largely gloomy affair employing metallic guitars often drenched in reverb, grave atmospherics and her emotive voice. 

Some of the lyrics explore her relationships with ex-lovers and family members, and Scott admits to feeling guilty about “exposing certain people or revealing them in ways they didn’t necessarily give me permission to.” 

She leaned on Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem for courage, particularly the book’s preface, where Didion declares that “writers are always selling somebody out.” 

“It was reaffirming [to read that],” Scott says. “It’s not that I needed permission, but it’s really neat to read literary heroes basically giving you permission to write about things you want to write about.”

Born in Georgia and raised a Baptist, Scott is familiar with Biblical and apocalyptic terminology, which runs deep through her sophomore record. She shares her own interpretations of the creation story in particular, and parts of the Book Of Revelation. 

Her goal wasn’t to regurgitate the stories or carry out any religious agenda, but to represent, respect and then subvert the scriptures to make them meaningful to her own experience.

“I kind of breathed my own life into them and tried to examine them from the perspective of someone who’s never heard or read the stories before,” she says. 

“There’s a bit of the creation story, a bit of Revelation’s in there. Apocalyptic, terrifying end-of-the-world stuff.”    

music@nowtoronto.com | @mattgeewilliams

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