In KUTX’s Stage To Studio feature, we’re taking a few artists from the monthly Open Mic at the Cactus Cafe (usually the first Wednesday of every month), and we invite them into the KUTX studios to record a few tracks. Then, fans can vote on which artist they liked best, and the winner will get their song played on-air as the song of the day.
Today we’re announcing July’s winner: Taylor Baker. The young Austin singer-songwriter is increasingly becoming a common fixture in the city’s musical landscape. After high school, Baker undertook a trip to New Zealand, and her post-graduation soul-searching ultimately led her to pick up the guitar. Baker has only been writing songs for about a year, but she already sounds incredibly self-assured. This past spring, she released Gold Dust, an EP that finds the singer combining strands of folk and country with soul.
Baker plans to join Eye In The Sky and Meraki Creative: the former is a music collective that includes Shakey Graves, the Couch, the Tontons, and more, while the latter connects local musicians with children in Uganda via an online marketplace. Baker’s collaborative spirit extends to her backing band as well. As the winner of this month’s Stage To Studio contest, she recorded a few songs in KUTX’s own recording studios with the help of Drew Walker on guitar and trumpet and Christian Umstattd on percussion. While we wait for a full-length album, “Beckoning Moon” can tide you over. The moody piece draws on the individual strengths of the musicians–Baker’s pleading voice, Walker’s mournful trumpet, and Umstattd’s ghostly time-keeping–to create something greater than just the sum of its parts.
