Double Infinity is the follow-up to 2022’s Grammy-nominated album, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You, recorded last winter at the Power Station, New York City. For three solid weeks, the trio would ride bicycles on frozen streets between Brooklyn and Manhattan, meeting in Power Station’s warm wood-panelled room. Together with a community of musicians (Alena Spanger, Caleb Michel, Hannah Cohen, Jon Nellen, Joshua Crumbly, June McDoom, Laraaji, Mikel Patrick Avery, Mikey Buishas) they would play for nine hours a day, tracking together – simultaneously – improvising arrangements and making collective discoveries. Double Infinity was produced, engineered and mixed by longtime Big Thief collaborator Dom Monks.

“How can beauty that is living be anything but true?” Adrianne asks as she drives nose against the future with childhood mementos on ‘Incomprehensible’. She understands, “everything I see from now on will be something new.” The silver hairs on her shoulders are new as well. Yet fear of aging is cracked by proof. If a life is shaped by living, “Let gravity be my sculptor, let the wind do my hair.” Being born, then staying a while, remains the greatest mystery. Adrianne claims her place and time. “Incomprehensible, let me be.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Liam says: Since the release of their 2020 opus 'Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You', a lot has happened to Big Thief. They've toured the globe non-stop, released various side-projects between them (with Lenker's incredible 'Bright Future' being one of our albums of 2024), but also had their long-serving bassist Max Oleartchik depart the band. But rather than let this affect them, Big Thief strived forward and invited a host of close collaborators and friends to create 'Double Infinity'.
Whilst 'Dragon New Warm Mountain...' acted as a best of as sorts - it saw Big Thief exploring every avenue of their repertoire with the utmost precision - 'Double Infinity' thrives within its looseness and collaborative energy. No more so than on the sweeping "Grandmother", which features New-Age legend Laraaji. Elsewhere, tracks like "All Day All Day", "Words" and "Happy With You" burst instrumentally with cosmic life, whilst the likes of "Incomprehensible", "Los Angeles" and "How Could I Have Known" are classic Big Thief - with the latter being one of their best tracks to date. Lenker also once again proves lyrically she's one of the finest songwriters of our generation. The way she creates these vivid vignettes with such ease and relatable intimacy is remarkable.
'Double Infinity' feels like the beginning of an exciting new chapter for Big Thief. A life-affirming record that examines love and, even though we might not always understand its various forms, the idea that it is the one constant we should all embrace in these ever challenging times.

TRACK LISTING

Incomprehensible
Words
Los Angeles
All Night All Day
Double Infinity
No Fear
Grandmother [ft. Laraaji]
Happy With You
How Could I Have Known

The trails that Brooklyn’s Big Thief -- Adrianne Lenker (guitar, vocals), Buck Meek (guitar), Max Oleartchik (bass), and James Krivchenia (drums) -- take us down on 2017’s 'Capacity', the band’s highly critically acclaimed sophomore album, are overgrown with the wilderness of pumping souls.

After 2016’s stunning 'Masterpiece', 'Capacity' was recorded in a snowy winter nest in upstate New York at Outlier Studio with producer Andrew Sarlo. The album jumps right into lives marked up and nipped in surprisingly swift fashion. They are peopled and unpeopled, spooked and soothed, regenerating back into a state where they can once again be vulnerable. Lenker’s songs introduce us to a gallery of multifaceted women and deal with the complicated matters of identity — at once dangerous and curious, though never unbelievable. Lenker shows us the gentle side of being ripped open. Tricked into love, done in and then witnessing the second act of pulling oneself back together to prepare for it to all happen again, but this time to a sturdier soul, one who is going to take the punches better than ever before and deal some jabs and roundhouses of their own.

The album is thick with raw, un-doctored beauty: most of the songs on 'Capacity' were played for the rest time in the studio and were recorded the same day. “There is a darker darkness and a lighter light on this album,” Lenker explains. “The songs search for a deeper level of self-acceptance, to embrace the world within and without. I think 'Masterpiece' began that process, as a reaction from inside the pain, whereas I feel 'Capacity' examines the pain from the outside.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Pretty Things
2. Shark Smile
3. Capacity
4. Watering
5. Coma
6. Great White Shark
7. Mythological Beauty
8. Objects
9. Haley
10. Mary
11. Black Diamonds

Big Thief will release a new edition of their 2016 debut album Masterpiece. For the first time on 4AD, the album containing much-loved songs ‘Paul’, ‘Real Love’ and title track ‘Masterpiece’, will be remastered and reissued on reVinyl pressing from 8 December.

Masterpiece was recorded in July 2015 at an old house that they turned into a studio on Lake Champlain with producer Andrew Sarlo and engineer James Krivchenia (who would go on to become a full-time Big Thief member). The resultant debut Big Thief studio album is filled with characters and visceral narratives, songs that pivot in the space of a few words. Adrianne Lenker's voice and guitar playing speak of rich emotional territory with grace and insight. In her words, the record tracks, "the masterpiece of existence, which is always folding into itself, people attempting to connect, to both shake themselves awake and to shake off the numbness of certain points in their life. The interpretations might be impressionistic or surrealistic, but they're grounded in simple things." It soars on what Big Thief fan Sharon Van Etten called "...a real journey, with intelligent stories and twist-and-turn melodies."

Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You is a sprawling double-LP exploring the deepest elements and possibilities of Big Thief. To truly dig into all that the music of Adrianne Lenker, Max Oleartchik, Buck Meek, and James Krivchenia desired in 2020, the band decided to write and record a rambling account of growth as individuals, musicians, and chosen family over 4 distinct recording sessions. In Upstate New York, Topanga Canyon, The Rocky Mountains, and Tucson, Arizona, Big Thief spent 5 months in creation and came out with 45 completed songs. The most resonant of this material was edited down into the 20 tracks that make up DNWMIBIY, a fluid and adventurous listen. The album was produced by drummer James Krivchenia who initially pitched the recording concept for DNWMIBIY back in late 2019 with the goal of encapsulating the many different aspects of Adrianne’s songwriting and the band onto a single record.

TRACK LISTING

Change
Time Escaping
Spud Infinity
Certainty
Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You
Sparrow
Little Things
Heavy Bend
Flower Of Blood
Blurred View
Red Moon
Dried Roses
No Reason
Wake Me Up To Drive
Promise Is A Pendulum
12,000 Lines
Simulation Swarm
Love Love Love
The Only Place
Blue Lightning

Big Thief had only just finished work on their 3rd album, U.F.O.F. – “the celestial twin” – days before in a cabin studio in the woods of Washington State. Now it was time to birth U.F.O.F.’s sister album – “the earth twin” – Two Hands. 30 miles west of El Paso, surrounded by 3,000 acres of pecan orchards and only a stone’s throw from the Mexican border, Big Thief (a.k.a. Adrianne Lenker, Buck Meek, Max Oleartchik, and James Krivchenia) set up their instruments as close together as possible to capture their most important collection of songs yet. Where U.F.O.F. layered mysterious sounds and effects for levitation, Two Hands grounds itself on dried-out, cracked desert dirt.

In sharp contrast to the wet environment of the U.F.O.F. session, the southwestern Sonic Ranch studio was chosen for its vast desert location. The 105-degree weather boiled away any clinging memories of the green trees and wet air of the previous session. Two Hands had to be completely different— an album about the Earth and the bones beneath it. The songs were recorded live with almost no overdubs. All but two songs feature entirely live vocal takes, leaving Adrianne’s voice suspended above the mix in dry air, raw and vulnerable as ever. With raw power and intimacy, Two Hands folds itself gracefully into Big Thief’s impressive discography. This body of work grows deeper and more inspiring with each new album.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It's October, and this is already the second Big Thief album this year. It would be understandable to think that such prolific creation would dilute the end product a little (it often does...) but in the case of Lenker, Meek and co, it couldn't be further from the truth. Arresting, heartfelt and beautiful throughout. Yet another stunning outing from the unstoppable Big Thief.

TRACK LISTING

1.Rock And Sing
2. Forgotten Eyes
3. The Toy
4. Two Hands
5. Those Girls
6. Shoulders
7. Not
8. Wolf
9. Replaced
10. Cut My Hair

U.F.O.F., F standing for ‘Friend’, is the name of the highly anticipated third record by Big Thief, set to be released by 4AD on May. It was recorded in rural western Washington at Bear Creek Studios with engineer Dom Monks, and producer Andrew Sarlo who was also behind their previous albums.

The New York-based band, featuring Adrianne Lenker (guitar, vocals), Buck Meek (guitar), Max Oleartchik (bass), and James Krivchenia (drums), has spent the last 4 years on an incessant world tour, winning the devotion of an enthusiastic and rapidly expanding audience.

Their songs represent an emotional bravery and realness that weaves intimate relationships with the listener, a phenomenon that has made them one of the most widely-respected bands of the current era.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Big Thief are one of our favourites in Piccadilly, and this latest iteration of their sound really shows why. Skilfully toeing the line between mournful acoustic balladry, simmering country and more upbeat melodic indie, Big Thief have once again brought us an eminently listenable and transportative triumph.

TRACK LISTING

1. Contact
2. UFOF
3. Cattails
4. From
5. Open Desert
6. Orange
7. Century
8. Strange
9. Betsy
10. Terminal Paradise
11. Jenni
12. Magic Dealer