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Photo: Angela Ricciardi

Delaney Bailey’s (i would have followed you) is a hauntingly breathtaking folk project that both disintegrates you yet reminds you just how alive you really are.

There’s a contact high you get from Bailey's soulful nudity, and it’s a tough project to stomach without succumbing to the weight of the singer-songwriter's aching. Getting past “Oh Love” without shedding tears is a triumph in and of itself, and the EP only continues to excavate deeper. By giving words to feelings you’ve never truly known how to greet, she scratches an itch in your brain that makes you feel held and at home.

Written by Bailey and produced by Dillan Witherow, (i would have followed you) is a bone-chilling ride through the valves of a wandering heart. Her voice is her most precious instrument, being supported only by soft acoustics. With “j’s lullaby (darlin' I’d wait for you)” amassing over 40 million streams, her fire is setting hearts aflame and promises to only grow more. 

(i would have followed you) is an album whose delicacy demands your full attention yet serves as a perfect score to impregnate a room as you move romantically through your day. It’s difficult to accept that a 21-year-old was able to write a song like “Love Letter From The Sea To The Shore,” one that speaks of an entrenching connection and poses a deep history of love and its counterparts. “Forgetting Delaney" is a much more eclipsed take on heartbreak, and the rejection that accompanies a lover moved on.

It’s a rarer find these days to come across a project so deeply bred from the heart, a warm one that is of porridge to the spirit. Written over the course of two years, including her senior year of college that she concluded while touring with Ricky Montgomery, Bailey grieves love lost while letting hope and the memories of what once was keep her heart wide open. It’s cinematic, soft, and painfully euphoric, and the industry couldn’t be in more dire need of it. 

Listen to (i would have followed you) below: