the americans Big Thief close the European tour of presentation of “Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You” on the peninsula. For this reason we have decided to publish a special about what is one of our most beloved bands today.
Big Thief will be performing in Barcelona (April 26, Sala Razzmatazz), Valencia (April 27, Sala Moon), Madrid (April 28, La Riviera) and Lisbon (April 29, Lisboa Ao Vivo).
A couple performs in Washington Square Park in New York, she sings and plays the guitar, he carries an electric guitar over his shoulder but doesn’t play, he just does harmonies when the chorus comes. There are a couple of people filming them, but the general feeling is one of indifference, no one stops to throw in money and a man sitting on a bench just two meters away turns his back on them indifferently. She sings with a focused intensity, immersed in her own world. It is a magical moment that was recorded for posterity by one of those two mobiles and uploaded to YouTube the next day, July 26, 2014, under the title “sweet voice in Washington Square NY”.
Now she, Adrianne Lenker, watches as Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy covers his songs or receives praise from pop star Carly Rae Jepsen, while he, Buck Meeks, has played with Bob Dylan, while his group, Big Thief, sings for thousands of people at Glastonbury and fills several rooms on his way through Spain. But the intensity with which they remain dedicated to music is the same as that moment in 2014 when they were complete strangers.
It is difficult to imagine a more bizarre life than Lenker’s. He was born while his parents were involved in a religious sect. When they left there they spent seasons living in a van, at the age of eight he had already composed his first song and at thirteen he recorded his first album. Her father tried to make her a pop star but then she discovered Elliott Smith and that changed her life. She became independent at the age of seventeen and, despite not having gone to high school because she was focused on her musical career, she obtained a scholarship to the prestigious Berklee College of Music thanks to the essential help of Susan Tedeschi.
In 2014 she would meet another Berklee alumnus with whom she would begin to play, Meek, and that is where our story begins, since she herself rejects her first works as if they were student homework. What is clear is that in 2014 her style is already defined, as can be seen in what she considers her debut album, “Hours Were The Birds”published on January 9, 2014. A naked album, only her with her voice and guitar, which is melancholic and bittersweet, if we look for the comparison with Smith, we could say that it is her “Roman Candle”. There is a lot of potential in his songs and on May 1 he publishes two simultaneous EP’s with Buck Meek, “a sides” and “b sides”, in the first one he rescues the best song from his previous album, “Indiana”, to which is added the voice of Meek and his embellishments with electric guitar. A formula that they repeat in another very remarkable song, “Jonathan”, the en “I Still Hear You” with which it is clear that the fact that Lenker has tattooed some verses of the “Suzanne” by Leonard Cohen is no coincidence. With the white van on the cover they go on tour and make it his life. They marry the following year.
It is at that moment that they make two very important decisions, first Lenker decides to buy his first electric guitar, choosing a Stratocaster, but the change with his beloved Martin Cutaway acoustic with which he has composed all his songs is too abrupt, so he follows the Meek’s advice and talks to Meek’s friend Aaron Huff, who works at Collings, a handmade guitar brand, where he is commissioned a semi-hollow SoCo that will become his main guitar, just like the Collings I-30 LC is Meek’s main. Of course, Lenker has not given up on the Stratocasters and this year he has gotten a ’66. As she herself says “I’ve only been playing electric since I was twenty-three, which is seven. I feel like my rock’n’roll days are still ahead of me. Now I’m ready for the Strat.”
The second decision they made will be even more important, that same year they formed Big Thief with Max Oleartchik on bass and Jason Burger on drums, and in 2016 they recorded their first album, “Masterpiece”, with James Krivchenia as engineer on the recording. The promises of his first works come true with a record of remarkable high in which the first gigantic songs of his career appear, such as the brilliant “Paul”, the song they sang in the scene that opened this article, or the title song, with the band becoming a kind of Neil Young & Crazy Horse through an indie filter. Lenker’s compositions are in line with the great composers they admire, Elliott Smith (whose shadow hovers once again in “Velvet Ring”), Neil Young , Townes Van Zandt or John Prine, all played by a band with a very special alchemy.
As soon as the recording was finished, Krivchenia replaced Burger in the band and the chemistry improved, in 2017 they entered to record their second album, “Capacity”, a continuous work but with better songs, jewels like “Shark Smile”, their best song up to that point, the titular one, with Meek’s guitar once again reminding Young, the exciting “Watering”, “Mythological Beauty”, sung from Lenker’s mother’s point of view, or “Mary”, a dramatic piano ballad that brings Lenker’s haunting voice to the fore.
In 2018 the band takes a break and Lenker and Meek’s marriage dissolves amicably. That year the singer released her solo work “abyss sketch”, a calm compendium of his melodic creativity, both in the vocal section and in his wonderful way of playing the guitar with the ‘fingerpickin’. Among his songs, the velvety “cradle”with some elegant second voices, also recorded by herself, and “symbol”, soft as a smile
And 2019 arrived and Big Thief they made it their year, putting out two huge albums. The first was “U.F.O.F.”, the closest to the intimacy of Lenker’s solo works although, despite its predominantly acoustic air, it has some incredible performances by the band and very careful arrangements. It was also his best collection of songs up to that date, the headline, “Contact”, the unbeatable “Cattails”, “Orange”, “Century”, “Strange”…
“Two Hands” it was the other side of the coin, the most electric and chaotic album, with the band recording live, voice and music, and leaving the imperfections inside, it is their closest work to the spirit of the Neil Young & Crazy Horse albums as well is tested in that monument made song called “Not”, in which they put so much intensity that it seems that in the end they are going to go out engulfed in flames, with Lenker totally devoted to her solo, especially live. Of course, it is not the only great song on an album in which they also appear “Forgotten Eyes”, “Shoulders” or the first collaboration between Lenker and Buck in composition, “Replaced”.
As if that were not enough, in 2020, with the pandemic canceling the tour of Big Thief, Lenker repeated the move and released two more solo albums, “songs” e “instrumentals”. Both were bathed in pain from their breakup with Indigo Sparke, as can be seen in the beautiful introductory single for “songs”, “anything”, or in that precious instrumental that goes on for more than twenty minutes called “music for indigo”, in which he can bring up that his first musical influences were Pat Metheny or Michael Hedges.
For his part, Meek took advantage of the pandemic break to afford to play with Bob Dylan in a very special project, his 2021 film “Shadow Kingdom: The Early Songs Of Bob Dylan” (which will appear as a record this year), in which the bard from Minnesota, with the help of a band with Meek on guitar, reinvents several of his classics aso “Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine”, “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” o “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue”.
And, finally, on February 11, 2022, they met again with “Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You”an overflowing double album that can be considered his masterpiece, with a devastating start in which the delicate “Change”, the intricate “Time Escaping”, the country joy of “Spud Infinity” and the beautiful melody “Certainty”, then also appears “Little Things”which perfectly explains the wonderful relationship between the two guitarists in the band, with Lenker leading the dreamy rhythm with his twelve strings and Meek coloring here and there with his Collings I-30 passed through a Leslie.
The first disc closes with the oppressive trip hop of “Blurred View” while the second opens with the luminous country of “Red Moon”something like the musical equivalent, in reverse, of the transition plane of “2001: A Space Odyssey” in which a bone from prehistoric times becomes a spaceship. It’s incredible that a band used to making us cry is able to deliver a song that is impossible to resist and that will end up painting a smile on the face of the most bitter (even Mr. Scrooge would soften before Lenker’s spontaneous cry, “That’s My Grandma!”).
It’s a joy to hear Lenker and Meek sing together again, with the singer totally dedicated and regular collaborator Matt Davidson getting away with the fiddle. With almost the same elements, Davidson’s fiddle in the leading role, the band breaks our hearts with the following song, “Dried Roses”, in which the old imprint of Iris DeMent walks. With “No Reason” they sound like a folk pop band from the sixties, flute solo included, but they once again throw everyone off balance with “Wake Me Up To Drive”, another song a million light years from the previous one. While “12000 Lines” is another of the album’s strong points, a devastating song that makes us see that Lenker, in addition to one for Neil Young, also has another altar for Joni Mitchell. Of course, the long shadow of the Canadian giant, together with Crazy Horse, reappears in “Love Love Love”, with Meek inserting those angular notes that seem to break against Lenker’s melody. And then there’s this beauty called “Simulation Swarm” in which the influence of Hedges and Mitchell blend seamlessly.
The closure comes with “Blue Lightning”, an optimistic theme that Lenker finishes off with that “Yeah, I wanna live forever til I die”, with which they sound like some kind of The Band from “Music From The Big Pink” updated for the 21st century, with a brilliant band finally reaching its peak. The music stops and a voice can be heard asking “What do we do now?” And is that what is done after recording a masterpiece? Well, he goes on tour and confirms on stage what the album already showed, which Big Thief It’s the best band today.
