Sophie Gault - Baltic Street Hotel (2024)

“Over & Out” opens reverb-heavy like the echo of overthinking, Gault's dulcet tones of redemption pleading, "Don’t you know that I’m only human / I’m only doing things the best way I know how / Trying to figure it out / don’t give up on me now." Whether speaking to herself or a long lost friend, her words call for understanding and leniency, a reminder that there is always more beneath the surface of any one person’s actions. Her unwavering voice turns ominous and storied amid chugs of swampy bass on the outlaw-inspired “Kid on the Radio" as she points out the importance of not trying to go it alone. Here, and on her anti-gospel ode to self-destruction "Kick the Devil Away," Gault is joined by a backing “choir of angels” that includes fellow Nashville recording artists Lilly Hiatt and Jon Latham.

The rock-forward “Fixin Things” erupts as Gault declares ownership of both her mistakes and the path to reconciliation every human deserves, singing boldly but coolly, “I’ve been a hot mess, been a bad look / Been a worn out book that you’ve read before / Been an old dress, zipper got stuck / Worth about 5 bucks at the thrift store / All that I can say is that I’m sick of saying sorry.” With delicate twinges of instrumentation — a mournful dip of pedal steel here, a whimsical flourish of harmonium there — songs “Lights" and “Lately” reveal a softer side of the album as Gault leans on those around her for support. The latter, a duet with singer-songwriter and frequent collaborator Gabe Lee, perfectly encapsulates a casual catch-up with that old friend you rarely speak to anymore but refuse to let go.

Among the set sits “Christmas in the Psych Ward," not strictly Yuletide in essence, where Gault crystallizes an experience under psychiatric care before pursuing her music career. It is straightforwardly titled but subtextual in its most poignant observations, navigating themes of isolation, hope, healthcare, and spirituality without caving into nihilism. Over a smattering of honkytonk that somehow also invokes alt-sounds of the '90s, she sings, “There’s a guitar they give you if you’re doing good / It’s got four strings and it’s made of plywood / I’m gonna go write down some songs and take them to Nashville / ‘That’s funny, honey, just swallow a few of these pills.’”

“People have all these ideas of what being in a mental hospital is like, and it’s really nothing like what most people imagine,” Gault explains. Speaking more specifically to misconceptions surrounding bipolar disorder, she adds, “There’s often this doubt of if it is a real thing or not. Especially with bipolar mania— even sometimes I doubt it, and it’s hard to convince people that it’s real, because it’s not like I have a brain scan that shows this is what happened to my brain when I went through mania. If people just talked about it more openly, it’d feel less isolating.”

Baltic Street Hotel was produced by Grammy Award-winning producer and singer-songwriter Ray Kennedy, known for his own country hits in the early ‘90s and his collaborative work with such luminaries as Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, and Patty Griffin. It’s a pairing that resulted in fruitful impromptu studio moments like a singular cover tucked neatly alongside Gault’s ten originals: a full-band reimagining of Griffin's acoustic classic "Every Little Bit" from her 1996 debut Living with Ghosts. Gault speaks of the serendipitous partnership with a sense of humbled admiration:

“My two favorite albums when I was in my teens were [Lucinda’s] Car Wheels and Transcendental Blues [by Steve Earle]. I had no idea Ray worked on either of those, probably because it was listed as his and Steve’s production company, ‘The Twangtrust.’ When I first met him, I wasn’t really playing any music, thinking I was going to quit totally, so my level of interest wasn’t what it had been. But he mentioned he was working with Lucinda on Good Souls Better Angels and that was so surreal…I’ve spent a lot of time at his studio Room & Board since, and he has really pushed me to dig a little deeper with these songs which I’m thankful for. I’m incredibly lucky to work with him – he really cares about the art.”

After that initial meeting, Kennedy would go on to mix Gault’s debut, Delusions Of Grandeur (released in 2022 under the moniker Sophie & the Broken Things), and continue working with her as she wrote and recorded Baltic Street Hotel. As Gault toured the East Coast in support of Delusions, she was cognizant of how far she had come since her hospital stay, and reflecting on that mindset is where she found the title for its follow-up: “I used to hang out in Brooklyn a lot with my old bass player who was from Staten Island. I had returned to New York for the first time in eight, nine, ten years to promote my first album, and the Baltic Hotel is where I stayed. It felt like a homecoming. I was like, wow, I went to Nashville, I made an album. And at that point, I didn’t know I was going to make a second album, but I felt like I had accomplished something and I was proud."

Album closer “Things Are Going Good'' finds Gault looking over her shoulder and knocking on wood, startled by her own contentment. She finds vernal possibility in the act of cooking breakfast, sacred kismet in green traffic lights, and on front porch steps beneath a blue jay’s song, cellular clarity. Through Baltic Street Hotel, Gault locates a path floodlit with gratitude and imperfect souvenirs toward the ultimate homecoming — forgiveness of the self.