![]() "It's about childhood being brought to life and reignited after the slush of the teenage years," Lenker says. ![]() ("There's really nothing like meeting a real friend on this earth who holds a space for you to be yourself," Lenker says.) "Mary" carries the warmth of that friendship and those winters. She first played it on her grandparents' keyboard some years ago, when she was 21 and just home from college, where she'd met a lifelong friend named Mary. It just had this particular smell - like potpourri and cloves and cinnamon. Just that feeling of being completely cradled. My grandparents - and my grandma, in particular - defined homey coziness in my life when I really needed it. And she'd bring out all these crafts and we'd sit and work on paintings and making things. And then go inside and my grandma would make incredible hot chocolate with whipped cream and cinnamon - she was a heavy cinnamon user - and my grandpa would put a fire on, and we would be there. And we would just slide down the hill for hours. I have memories of sledding down in the backyard there was a hill that went down a path through this patch of woods. "And every winter - we spent every single winter there. "We had a fireplace there," she remembers. It is the sound of snow piling on the windowsill of your childhood home, of a summer rain slanted against some beloved attic's cooling roof, of a childhood photograph rediscovered in a faded frame.Īnd it's the sound of Lenker's grandparents' house in Andover, Minn. Recorded in one take with Mat Davidson from Twain on piano, "Mary" is a song that so flawlessly captures an ineffable, deeply personal experience of the world that it becomes universal. It's hard to imagine any other arrangement sounding this fitting. Instead of Adrianne Lenker and Buck Meek's wiry guitar arrangements, "Mary" pairs a hallowing piano and organ with the closeness of Lenker's consoling voice. Placed right next to each other and revealing unseen depths of the band, this trio of tracks transform this album-frankly, they have burrowed themselves into my brain, and are some of my favorite Big Thief songs in their catalog."It's about childhood being brought to life and reignited after the slush of the teenage years," Adrianne Lenker says of "Mary."Īll the songs on Capacity, the upcoming album from Big Thief, are guitar songs - save for one. Inspired by indie pop, goth, New Wave, and even Portishead-esque trip-hop, these are tracks that explode the limits of Big Thief. But it is the biggest genre diversions that go over best: “Heavy Bend,” “Flower of Blood,” and “Blurred View,” are perhaps the most fascinating and hard-hitting songs on the album. “Wake Me Up to Drive” introduces patient drum machines to the mix, while “Little Things” is an echo-drenched barn-burner with a twitchy rhythm section that plays like “UFOF’s” “Cattails’” in the big city. Bassist Jason Burger shines on “Sparrow,” an enveloping folk song that spreads out like a bruise over its runtime, while Buck Meek’s plaintive, whining guitar lines lend depth to songs like "Change" and the title track. “Red Moon” is followed by “Dried Roses”-the best Townes Van Zandt song that Townes Van Zandt never wrote. I won’t spoil the breakdown halfway through, but if it doesn’t make you smile you should check your pulse. “Red Moon,” another country number placed at the album’s center, is its second joyous high point. Since their debut album “Masterpiece” back in 2016 Big Thief always has wrestled with capital-i Ideas, but on their latest album their approach to conveying them could not be more expansive yet simple: they write songs, and sing them. This imbues the album with an immediacy and beautifully un-enunciated tension. ![]() This effect is largely due to this album’s unique recording style: in stark contrast to their last albums, they recorded it in pieces, in four sessions in four locations across the United States, with drummer James Krivchenia consistently producing the tracks. This is Big Thief enjoying writing, and writing around what speaks to them at that moment. Don’t expect too much from the Big Thief of old, with whisper-quiet indie folk or dusty rock balladry-here, New Wave, world music, pop, country, and bluegrass influences intermingle with folk music in wild, unpredictable ways. These sister albums cut to the core of Big Thief, and “Dragon.” is an enormous follow-up that mines those same emotional depths with unimaginably great new instrumental ideas. Songs became less conceptual, more down-to-earth. On two exceptional albums in 2019-“UFOF” and “Two Hands”-Big Thief’s songwriting opened itself up. ![]()
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