Pure Magie: das neue Album von Big Thief
Ein Album, das die vielen verschiedenen Aspekte von Adrianne Lenkers Songwriting und der Band vereint – so in etwa kann man die Idee hinter dem neuen Album von Big Thief zusammenfassen. »Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You« lautet der Titel ihres fünften Studioalbums, für das die US-amerikanische Indie-Rock-Band aus New York eine neue Herangehensweise wählte.
Denn, um all das zu erforschen, was die Musik von Adrianne Lenker, Max Oleartchik, Buck Meek und James Krivchenia ausmacht, entschied sich die Band im Jahr 2020 dazu, einen »weitläufigen Bericht über ihr Wachstum als Individuen, Musiker und Familie zu schreiben und aufzunehmen.«
Vier Aufnahmesessions waren dazu nötig, eine in Upstate New York, eine im Topanga Canyon, eine in den Rocky Mountains und eine in Tucson, Arizona. Zu den Aufnahmen sagte Lenker: »Eines der Dinge, die uns als Band zusammenhalten, ist pure Magie. Ich glaube, wir haben alle den gleichen Leitfaden, und keiner von uns hat je gesagt, was es ist, weil wir es nicht benennen konnten, aber irgendwie streben wir alle nach dem gleichen Ziel, und wenn wir es treffen … wissen wir alle, dass es das ist, aber keiner von uns wird bis heute, oder vielleicht nie, in der Lage sein, in Worte zu fassen, was das ›es‹ ist. Irgendetwas daran ist für mich magisch.«
Big Thief verbrachten fünf Monate mit der Produktion und hatten schließlich unglaubliche 45 fertige Songs im Kasten – zu viele für ein Album. Aber das sei genau das, was sich die Band von diesem großen Experiment erhoffte habe. Also wurde »Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You« ein Doppelalbum, auf das es immerhin 20 der Stücke, die besten, geschafft haben.
Produziert wurde das Album von Schlagzeuger James Krivchenia. Als Singles erschienen bereits die Songs »Change«, »Certainty«, »Little Things« und »Sparrow«.
Mit seinem Mix aus Indie-Folk, Neo-Psychedelia und Folkrock ist Opus 5 das stilistisch vielseitigste Big-Thief-Album.
(Stereo, März 2022)
Following two acclaimed studio albums that broke the band onto the independent and folk charts, Big Thief returned in 2019 with two very different Billboard 200-charting full-lengths: the artfully cosmic U.F.O.F. and the raw and jagged Two Hands. Using nature as an inspiration for those dissimilarities, the former album was recorded in the wooded Northwest, while Two Hands was tracked in stifling desert conditions in Texas. With the resulting contrasts in mind, their fifth LP, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You, is a sprawling double album (with a title to match) recorded in four different regions of the U.S. -- Topanga Canyon, Tuscan, the Colorado Rockies, and the Catskills -- with a slate of accomplished engineers overseen by the band's drummer, James Krivchenia. (While this is his first outing as main producer for Big Thief, Krivchenia previously produced albums for himself and Mega Bog.) The results are even more mercurial than these conditions might suggest. Cut down from 45 to 20 songs and intended as a showcase for Adrianne Lenker's songwriting range as well as the band's continued growth as a unit, DNWMIBIY is paradoxically haphazard by design. That ultimately means it never sticks with a mood or even a sound palette for long, with sequencing seeming to play up contrasts and keep the ground moving under listeners' feet. It opens, for instance, with the top-notch, sparsely arranged "Change," a poignant meditation on life, death, and jealousy. That song is followed by the relatively chaotic, experimental "Time Escaping," whose more anxious melody is accompanied by prepared acoustic guitars, synths, and a kit that's played on and off drumheads. Elsewhere, the spacey, throbbing, deadpan diversion "Blurred View" leads straight into lively hoedown track "Red Moon" featuring Mat Davidson (Twain, the Low Anthem) on fiddle. Embracing conspicuous drum machine, the low-key tour anthem "Wake Me Up to Drive" is followed by the entirely solo "Promise Is a Pendulum," a song whose poetic, tender disposition is almost startling by contrast ("I could never build the shadow/Between your cheek and your eye…. The canopy of lashes/With the softness of ashes"). Along the way, further explorations include a trippy, reflective title track that has pedal steel, synth, and icicles among its instrumentation; singalong "No Reason," featuring Richard Hardy (Carole King) on flute; and if the odd meter of "Little Things" seems hard to pin down, it's because, per Krivchenia, it consists of an "evolving free time signature" that developed into a light groove that effectively left the band guessing at the location of downbeats. Like the vast majority of Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You, it works -- taken individually. The album closes with the celebratory, countrified "Blue Lightning," which bookends the set with studio banter. It seems unfair to call DNWMIBIY a failed experiment, as it's loaded with gems -- including some of Big Thief's most free-spirited work to date -- however, it lands much more like a showreel than a plotted album.
(by Marcy Donelson, All Music Guide)