"I feel like I'm hearing my voice sound more natural, just like I'm talking. Like, why did I ever think I couldn't do that? Why did I ever think that would look weird, or sound weird? It's kind of like finally giving myself permission to wear certain clothes. "I feel like, more and more, I'm learning how to bring all aspects of myself in. or Two Hands, there's some stuff where I can hear my own insecurity, or I can hear my brain getting in the way. "If I listen to stuff from Masterpiece, or Capacity, or even U.F.O.F. But my ways of articulating are changing as I'm becoming more comfortable with myself. "I hear the same essence, honestly, as from when I was a little kid. "I hear more freedom and looseness the more time goes by," she says. It also means that Lenker gets closer to a true expression of herself through her work, which ultimately makes for a happier and more fulfilled artist. Lenker's maturing songwriting means even better music for her fans. "Just trying to satisfy that inner yearning in ourselves to feel nourished by the music as we're making it." Letting the light in Keeping that curiosity and that playfulness and that exploration and experimenting, and not worrying about how many people will like it, and what people think about it. "We're a little more loose and letting we're a little more free," she says. So they let the work shape the direction of the album rather than setting out with strict goals.Ī solid foundation often gives bands more confidence to be playful, and Lenker hopes that's an element of Big Thief that can be retained. With touring plans in COVID-affected disarray, Big Thief knew they had plenty of time to work on what would come next. "We've become more of a band, we've bonded more, and our friendships have gotten stronger."Īll this helped them relax into making this new record. "I think we've really grown together as a band," she says. They've now been together for seven years and five records, and the chemistry between them keeps on improving. Stuff that I need to hear that I don't realise I need to hear at the time." Embracing playfulness and curiosityīig Thief are an astoundingly sympathetic band, hugely versatile in their handle on both genre and dynamics. "They do teach me and oftentimes they're sort of like a ballroom or like medicine that I need. "I've realised that I really learn what the songs are about through time," she says. While those raw ideas do require a certain amount of finessing once they're on the page, Lenker is happy to leave the themes of her work open-ended enough that even she can find new meanings and lessons through her own words. "What happens after death? What is death? What was before this? "It's generally just curiosity about what the heck this existence is and how we got to be here," she says. Though they're couched in the warm indie-folk tones of her sleek, tasteful, and soulful band, Lenker's words interrogate some of the biggest questions out there. They're not insignificant curiosities either. "Everything surrounding all of those curiosities are just expanding as I go through life," she says. Lenker, now 30, is finding that the more you know, the more you don't know. It stands to reason that someone who writes so keenly and elegantly about relationships, grief, pain, love, and desire finds new depth as they grow. Hear Zan Rowe chat with Big Thief's Adrianne Lenker above: I find more vocabulary and I just get deeper, and things become more intricate and simultaneously simpler." Loading. "I think that I've been writing about basically the same stuff since I was a little kid," she tells Double J's Zan Rowe. The literate flair in her lyrics remains, the sensitivity of her phrasing is even more affecting, and even splashes of humour appear among this intricate, beautiful collection of work, lending a new sense of light to Big Thief's often bleak refrains. True to form, these are Lenker and her band's best songs yet. She had also released five solo albums, the last four of which were equally adored by her growing legion of fans.īig Thief's stunning fifth album, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You, gives Lenker another 80 minutes to interrogate the world and the things that matter to her. It's astounding that Adrianne Lenker, already one of the world's best current songwriters, is still evolving and improving.īefore last week, her band Big Thief had released four acclaimed albums, each one more revered than the last. "I always feel like I write about the simplest yet most perplexing things."
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