\n<\/p>\n
That attention has grown steadily since 2013, when Webster, then 16, self-released her debut album, \u201cRun and Tell,\u201d a folksy whirl of slide guitar and twang. She grew up in Atlanta, where she still lives, listening to her mother play Alison Krauss records and bluegrass fiddle songs, an aesthetic she has incorporated into her own music. But she has also moved, solidly and smoothly, into a middle ground between indie-rock and country \u2014 pedal steel mashed with bass, simmering drums beneath tropical synths \u2014 as she homes in on the banal brutalities of relationships.<\/p>\n
On her new album, \u201cUnderdressed at the Symphony,\u201d<\/a> out Friday, she traces the minutiae of piecing herself together after a breakup: She congratulates herself for eating before noon, scrolls through her eBay search history, reminds herself to call her mom.<\/p>\n Webster is reluctant to call it a breakup record. \u201cI wish there was a better term for it,\u201d she said, after sighing. The first song she wrote for the album, \u201cBut Not Kiss,\u201d<\/a> began with a 10-second voice memo she brought to the studio. She slowly unspools the line, \u201cI want to sleep in your arms,\u201d and then, after a pause, rushes out the words, \u201cBut not kiss.\u201d She had been searching for music that could speak to that feeling, what she calls \u201can anti-romantic love song.\u201d When she couldn\u2019t find it, she wrote it. \u201cI was able to create this really off-balance, contradicting almost, meaningful thing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The title comes from a ritual she started in the months after her split. She would decide to see the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, a 15-minute drive from her house, moments before a performance was set to begin. \u201cIt was therapeutic to me,\u201d she said. \u201cI was like, nobody knows me, I don\u2019t know anybody here, they don\u2019t care about me. I\u2019m incognito, and I\u2019m listening to music I don\u2019t know anything about.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n