Big Thief’s Adrianne Lenker, MOJO Working,
AR FROM letting Covid destabilise or divert them, Brooklyn-based indie quartet Big Thief quarantined for two weeks in July 2020 in a house in the Vermont woods, and then zigzagged across the US for four separate sessions. The 20-song result is the band’s first double LP, the most ambitious version yet of their spacious grunge-folk hybrid, including a foray into country on such songs as Spud Infinity and Red Moon.
“We accumulated so many songs that we loved, maybe about 50,” reports singer and
Fmain songwriter Adrianne Lenker, on a break during rehearsals for their autumn US tour. “Twenty could be whittled down to 12, but not 50.”
They considered releasing two records in one year – as the did in 2019 with U.F.O.F. and
Two Hands, which were followed by 2020 solo albums from Lenker, guitarist Buck Meek and drummer James Krivchenia. Eventually, says Meek, they settled on, “focusing on different chunks of songs… that were stylistically, or thematically, connected. Like, we could just play country music for two weeks and not think about the rock songs.”
Lenker divides up the sessions in more abstract categories: “bombastic and wild, and hi-fi”, “raw and no fat, just songs, and acoustic,” and, “more serene, internal and reflective.” Recording started in upstate New York at Sam Evian’s Flying Cloud studio. “It was a period of reconnecting with friends and just making music, like when we first started the band,” says bassist Max Oleartchik. Next was Jonathan Dixon’s Five Star studio in California’s Topanga Canyon, with engineer Shawn Everett, who Buck calls “a strange wizard”. Krivchenia, who also produced the new LP, recalls Everett, “had this huge box of contact microphones, made up of dilapidated stethoscopes, plastic fruit and headphones, which record by capturing vibrations rather than the passage of air. Blurred View, for example, was recorded exclusively that way.”
Third was Colorado’s Studio in The Clouds with British engineer Dom Monks, and finally the country-focused fortnight at Press On in Tucson, Arizona with engineer Scott McMicken and their friend Matt ‘Twain’ Davidson on pedal steel and fiddle. “There was also a train that ran past every 15 minutes,” says Krivchenia. “It became part of the recording.”
“It was such a collaboration,” says Lenker. “The artistry of each engineer was such an important part. They had different personalities and tools, and we wanted to see how each treated our songs.”
The new album’s lyrical vision remains Lenker’s alone, as she processes Covid-world as well as existential thoughts. “I’ve noticed that a lot of this record is more uplifting and hopeful,” she says. “Which is funny, given the times we’re in. And there’s more acceptance, of the self and of the whole paradigm we’re in. The mysteries of humanity and how it’s all unfolding. I’ll probably be writing about that until I die!”
Positivity appears to run freely through this most vital and tight-knit of bands. “We’ve worked so hard to build trust between us over the years,” Lenker concludes. “This record was created on that bedrock.”
“We could play country and not think about the rock songs.”
BUCK MEEK