Adam Torres

In the mid-2000s Adam Torres, a Midwestern singer and songwriter, established himself in Athens, Ohio’s expanding independent-music community. He divided his time between Switzerland, where his parents resided, and Athens, where he pursued college studies while appearing both alone and alongside the respected indie folk outfit Southeast Engine. After passing the summer of 2005 in Switzerland, Torres came back to Ohio carrying a set of new compositions that became his 2006 debut, Nostra Nova. Assembled with help from musicians throughout the Athens scene, the record emerged as an expansive, ambitious project built around Torres’s intellectually charged songs in a folk-inflected style, several of them shaped by his growing engagement with the writings of psychologist Carl Jung. Though issued only in a restricted DIY edition, the album gradually acquired cult status among those familiar with it. From 2005 to 2008 Torres kept recording and touring with Southeast Engine; after finishing college he spent several years living in Ecuador. In 2012 the Washington, D.C.-based cassette label DZ Tapes issued a self-titled collection of demos he had recorded during his time in South America. He later settled in Austin, Texas, where he joined the local indie circuit and began shaping material for a second proper studio album. Misra Records reissued Nostra Nova in 2015. The next year Torres signed with Fat Possum Records, which released his long-awaited follow-up, Pearls to Swine, in September.