Lou Turner
Lou Turner is the solo recording project of songwriter, poet, and multi-instrumentalist Lauren Turner. Born in Texas and based in Nashville, she co-founded the band Styrofoam Winos and frequently collaborates with others in the wider New Weird South community. Turner's first record An Ex-Pat Returns (2017) was hailed "equally cool, inventive and emotionally resonant" by Nashville Scene who also likened her voice's warm grit to a "down-home Dory Previn."
She made her label debut with 2020's Songs for John Venn (SPINSTER)—called "some kind of low-key masterpiece" by Aquarium Drunkard, it heralded her as “one of the most promising indie rock songwriters in Nashville” (NPR Music). With Venn, Turner and her collaborators layered genre-bending production around her folk songs, ranging from flute-flecked kraut-rock to 70's AM radio warmth.
Turner's third album Microcosmos (SPINSTER) releases in 2022 and presents Turner's songwriting at its most focused and spare yet, while also exploring the collaborative energy of live recording with her Winos bandmates as a backing band. A wryly self-proclaimed “domestic troubadour record,” it simultaneously hangs a backdrop of a spaghetti western-inspired landscape and playfully subverts the troubadour archetype via Turner's celebrations of the infinitesimal.
Videos & Press
“Lou Turner is one of the most promising indie rock songwriters in Nashville right now to my ears…And I really get such a Pavement vibe from what she does. That kind of brainy, angular rock with really brilliant lyrics that challenge you a little bit but are very rewarding in the end.
And I also really love her voice, I love the inquisitiveness of the way she sings. She’s just an adventurous singer within the frameworks she’s created. So this is one of my favorite new discoveries.”
“Lou Turner is a breath of fresh air, writing songs which sound like only she sounds. She evokes breezy 70’s am radio confessionals, traditional folk and country worship, Laurel Canyon singer-songwriter meditations and DIY home-taper zeal and distills it all into her own song cycle.”
Selected press for Songs for John Venn:
“Some kind of low-key masterpiece” -Tyler Wilcox, Aquarium Drunkard Review
Dusted, Review, by Jennifer Kelly
The Nashville Scene, “Cream Premiere: Lou Turner Gets Cooking in ‘Widening Venn Diagram’ [Fresh Vid],” by Jacqueline Zeisloft
The Nashville Scene, “Lou Turner Explores Her Own Kind of Spirituality on Songs for John Venn,” by Jacqueline Zeisloft
NPR Music, “Pause and Hit Play Playlist,” chosen by Ann Powers
NPR Music’s World Cafe Live, “It’ll Take More Than a Tornado and a Pandemic to Stop the Music of Nashville,” by Ann Powers
Various Small Flames, “Flickering Protagonist” Video Premiere, Liam Doyle and Jon Doyle
