#max oleartchik

[yesnowhatno]

What is the best Big Thief song?

Vampire Empire

My opinion is wrong

Voting ended onAug 1, 2023

[thepermanentrainpress]

Gallery: Big Thief @ Orpheum - Vancouver, BC Date: August 3, 2023 Photographed by: Ray Maichin

[the--magic-never-stopped]

Big Thief 5/13/22 - The Observatory North Park

[tri-ciclo]

she was a shark smile in a yellow van she came around and i stole her glance in my youth, a vampire evelyn shown quiet as roses sting
 it came over me at a bad time, but who wouldn’t ride on a moonlight line? i had her in my eye, 85 down the road of a dead end gleam
 she said woo baby take me i said woo baby take me too
 it came over her at a bad time, riding through Winona down the dotted line she held us, gunning out 90 miles down the road of a dead end dream she looked over with her part smile, caught up in the twinkle it could take awhile and the money pile on the dashboard, fluttering
 as she said woo baby take me i said woo baby take me too
 evelyn’s kiss was oxygen, i leaned over to take it in as we went howling through the edge of south des moines it came over me at a bad time, she burned over the double line and she impaled as i reached my hand for the guard rail, the guard rail, the guard rail 
 she said woo baby, take me i said woo baby take me too

[adsmusiconstellations]

Big Thief - No Reason (Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You, 2022)

Official Audio / https://bigthief.net / https://4ad.com/

Taken from forthcoming album 'Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You', out Feb 11th via 4AD. Pre-save/pre-order the album here: https://bigthief.ffm.to/dnwmibiy

[theoptimisticfatalist]

I Wanna Be Yours – Arctic Monkeys/Paul – Big Thief

[nofatclips]

Mythological Beauty by Big Thief from the album Capacity - Directed by Vanessa Haddad

[sinceileftyoublog]

Big Thief Album Review: U.F.O.F.

(4AD)

BY JORDAN MAINZER

People, animals, bugs, hospitals, tenderness, intimacy--they’re all going to show up in a Big Thief album, and U.F.O.F. is no exception. At the same time, Adrianne Lenker and company are still redefining what “Big Thief album” means, and on their third (and 4AD debut), they up the expanse. If Capacity relied totally on Lenker’s world weary voice and nurturing-despite-desolate imagery, U.F.O.F. introduces into the studio fold that which makes Big Thief so arresting as a live band, namely the depth and versatility of Lenker’s voice and the band’s raw, yet celestial instrumentation. Only a singer like Lenker--and maybe Emmylou Harris--could be so affecting staying at basically one note for minutes, as she does on “Cattails”, and on the flip side, adopt an effective lower register on “Betsy”.

Indeed, at the center of Big Thief is the interplay between the earthbound and the otherworldly--the title of the album means “UFO friend,” for goodness sakes--and opening track “Contact” exemplifies this tension. Lenker sings with a shrill whisper over Buck Meek’s twangy guitars; the song sounds like a warning sign. “I want to drink your milk,” Lenker sings, weak despite the layering of her vocals. “She gives me gills,” she sings of the character Jodi, before clarifying, “helps me forgive the pills.” But it all changes when she screams, the straw that broke the camel’s back, as Meek starts to rip Crazy Horse-style guitar riffs, and Lenker doesn’t let up.

The screams aren’t disturbing, though--rather, they’re the manifestation of pure emotion, complex in their tone. Likewise, in Big Thief songs, there’s always a dreamy innocence to even the most specifically foreboding details. The xylophone percussion of “Open Desert” belies the “white light of the waiting room leaking through the crack in the door.” Gorgeous strumming accompanies Lenker’s “crying little rivers in her forearm” on “Orange”. She sings bluntly of dead insects on a car windshield in “Century”, as Max Oleartchik’s bass slinks along to deliver her to the apex, a simple harmony with Meek: “We have the same power,” they sing, awe-inspired. “Jenni” is a certain standout, the title referring to a character in Lenker’s room, someone welcome, Lenker singing again in a layered whisper. The song radiates simultaneous discomfort and beauty, the instrumentation more expected on a Low or True Widow album than on one by Big Thief.

“My chest is the crossing / The blood is parting all the time,” Lenker reveals on closer “Magic Dealer”, before clarifying, “but I don’t mind.” At the end of the day, life is pain, and pain is life, but if you’re unable to see the beauty in it all, whether you’re a space alien or a terrestrial human, you might as well be dead.

8.8/10