Adrianne Lenker

★★★ Songs/Instrumentals 4AD. CD/DL/LP Solo fruits of Big Thief singer’s productive lockdown. It’s not as if Big Thief’s records have ever been cluttered with modish gimmicks, but these two albums from singer Adrianne Lenker seem to have rolled away from the modern world entirely. Recorded in a cabin in western Massachusetts during the first months of lockdown, this is music that stopped wearing shoes a long time ago, muddy guitar pastoral splashed with birdsong and raindrops.

Instrumentals is a collage of unhulled, wood-smoked acoustic guitar improvisations;

Songs draws itself into clearer focus through Lenker’s sweet, freshly-cut voice, her jinglejangle mornings full of emptiness and self-doubt on Not A Lot, Just Forever and Zombie Girl, or lost to circling memories on Anything. “I’m starting over,” she says quietly as Music For Indigo peters out, and these records reflect that quiet announcement: clearing the decks, scorching the earth.