Torres knows the darkness. The 23 year old Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter otherwise known as Mackenzie Scott waits until anything—an idea, an emotion, a memory—gnaws at her, tearing at her fingers and throat until she releases it in song. Following her self-titled debut in 2013, Torres pushes herself to even noisier extremes on her new album 'Sprinter,' a punishing self-examination of epic spiritual and musical proportions.

'Sprinter' was co-produced by Robert Ellis (PJ Harvey); and Portishead's Adrian Utley. With his guitar riffs and synthesizers lingering in the background like a lowland mist and PJ Harvey's Robert Ellis and Ian Oliver on rhythm—the two fortuitously reuniting 23 years after the release of 'Dry,' and in Scott's 23rd year of living—she crafted a "space cowboy" record.

"That's as simply as I can say it," says Scott, who cites inspirations as diverse as Funkadelic and Nirvana, Ray Bradbury and Joan Didion. "I wanted something that very clearly stemmed from my Southern conservative roots but that sounded futuristic and space-y at the same time."