![]() ![]() Or, perhaps, it’s those seemingly supernatural forces that connect each of them through their music. Part of that may have to do with Krivchenia taking the production reins for the first time (the cross-country approach was his idea), or with the band having more space to focus on recording during the early days of the pandemic. Even “Spud Infinity,” which contemplates self-acceptance alongside garlic bread and potato knishes, does so without compromising playfulness or poignance. You can hear it across all 20 songs, from the exhilarating “Little Things,” which moves like a living organism - drums pounding like a heartbeat, guitar chords coursing like blood - to the raucous “Red Moon,” overflowing with joy via yelps, whistles, and fiddle solos. The group also welcomed outside musicians into the fold: Mat Davidson of Twain sat in on the Arizona session on fiddle, longtime Carole King flutist Richard Hardy contributed to “No Reason” after the band met him in Telluride, and Lenker’s brother Noah added jaw harp on “Spud Infinity.”ĭespite additional guests, Big Thief have never sounded more in touch with each other than they do on Dragon. and Two Hands engineer Dom Monks and in Tucson, barn-raising country with Dr. ![]() In upstate New York, they made bare-bones folk with singer-songwriter Sam Evian in California’s Topanga Canyon, complex and knotty rock soundscapes with the indie mastermind Shawn Everett in the Colorado mountains, ethereal acoustic songs with U.F.O.F. ![]() The creativity continued to flow afterward, and the members channeled it into their solo work: Lenker’s pandemic-born songs and instrumentals, Meek’s country rambler Two Saviors, Krivchenia’s ASMR–flecked A New Found Relaxation, and Oleartchik’s jazz performances.ĭragon, which was culled together from four separate recording sessions across the country with four different engineers, stands as Big Thief’s crowning achievement. They proved as much in 2019, when they released two career-defining albums in U.F.O.F., a delicate, stirring record made outside Seattle, and Two Hands, a more rugged outing recorded in a Texas border town. But they’re able to channel those powers best as a group, coaxing sounds out of their instruments as if they’re all guided by the same unseen forces. The four members of Big Thief - Oleartchik, Lenker, guitarist Buck Meek, and drummer James Krivchenia - are each magicians in their own right. The closest thing to an answer might lie in singer Adrianne Lenker’s opening line from “Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You,” the title track off the band’s enchanting new double album: “It’s a little bit magic.” “It’s, in some ways, very mysterious,” says bassist Max Oleartchik. It’s a unique synergy even the critically acclaimed quartet has a hard time explaining. Something peculiar happens whenever Big Thief comes together to play music. Max Olearchik, Buck Meek, Adrianne Lenker, and James Krivchenia. ![]()
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