big thief
Big Thief Unveils 2023 Tour Dates
Big Thief has announced a spring 2023 tour of North America, the U.K. and Europe in support of its latest 4AD album, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You. The group will perform for the first time at some of the biggest venues of its career, including Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium and New York’s Radio Music Hall. The tour begins Jan. 31 in Burlington, Vt., with North American dates running through March 2 at Radio City. The international portion starts April 5 in Gateshead, England, and concludes April 29 in Lisbon. Tickets go on sale at 10 am local time on Sept. 16, with a 24-hour Spotify happening two days earlier. Big Thief has a handful of shows on tap in the Far East before the end of the year, beginning Nov. 12 in Seoul and wrapping Dec. 4 in Wellington, N.Z. Big Thief Tour Dates...
The Best Rock Albums of 2022 (So Far)
Compared to the last couple of years, 2022 has been a bonanza of incredible rock record releases. It seems like every week there are two or three projects just begging for proper time and attention. Many artists who were kept off the road due to the pandemic and were inspired to write during their forced, sabbatical and have returned with fresh perspectives and new sounds. Then there were those who held back some of their best material to wait and see how the state of the world shook out. However they got to 2022, and it’s a joy to finally begin to hear these legitimately righteous records. It’s probably a little too soon for me to declare an absolute favorite album out of the bunch we’ve gotten so far. It’s been such an eclectic year for rock albums, with artists of every stripe truly del...
Big Thief Cancel Tel Aviv Concerts
On Friday, Big Thief announced that they’d be playing in Tel Aviv, Israel, which happens to be the city where bassist Max Oleartchik is from. Following a backlash to their statement where they defended performing there, Big Thief have canceled those shows. In a new statement, they called apologized for the “recklessness and naivete” of their previous one. “We would like to start by clarifying a few things from our first post,” the band wrote in the new statement. “When we spoke of loving ‘beyond disagreement’ and not knowing ‘where the moral high ground lies,’ that was in specific referred to playing shows in Israel during a time where BDS (The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement is a Palestinian-led movement promoting boycotts, divestments, and economic sanctions against Israel) is...
The 30 Best Albums of 2022 (So Far)
The following acts released quality albums in May 2022 alone: Radiohead off-shoot The Smile, Kendrick Lamar, Wilco, Arcade Fire, Sharon Van Etten, The Black Keys, Florence + the Machine, Harry Styles — we’ll stop there for space reasons. It’s been such a wild music year so far, only some of them made the following list. Maybe 2022 was just front-loaded and the final six months will be less eventful. (Judging by the release calendar, that’s probably a bad prediction.) Either way, we had trouble even narrowing this down to 30. Let’s meet back here at year’s end and see how things shake out. 30. Caracara – New Preoccupations Fans of classic 2000s emo — Say Anything, Dashboard Confessional, or Circa Survive, for example — are sure to find something to love in Caracara’s New Preoccupations (and...
Big Thief Release Statement About Decision to Play in Israel
Big Thief are planning to play two shows next month in Tel Aviv, Israel, which happens to be bassist Max Oleartchik’s hometown. Ahead of the gigs, the band shared a lengthy statement via Instagram explaining their reason for playing in such a controversial place. In the message, they noted that “it is important for us to go where we have family to share space and play for them. It is foundational,” and addressed the inherently political nature of playing in Israel during a conflict. “Our intention is not to diminish the values of those who support the boycott or to turn a blind eye to those suffering,” they explained. “We are striving to be in the spirit of learning.” With that in mind, Big Thief is vowing that “the show’s profits will be donated to NGOs that provide medical and human...
The 30 Best Songs of 2022 (So Far)
It’s almost absurd how much good music — universally acclaimed, big-ticket, year-end contender music — came out in 2022’s first five months. It’s hard to imagine the next seven matching that pace. We’ve heard soul-bearing rap songs (Kendrick Lamar), future windows-down rock classics (Momma), loads of elite-level Thom Yorke (The Smile) — the list, literally, goes on. Below, we gathered our 30 favorite tracks of 2022 so far. (In this case, we decided songs from any 2022 albums were on the table.) Let’s meet back here at year’s end and see how things shake out. 30. All Get Out – “Feeling Well” The first single from All Get Out’s new album, Kodak, smartly swirls folk-rock, emo, and a dash of country into a potent cocktail of paranoia, self-doubt, and hesitant nostalgia. This South Carolin...
Big Thief’s Mammoth New Album Overflows With Indie-Folk Ambition
To label Big Thief’s panoramic new project a “double album” is something of a misnomer. In totality, the 81-minute mammoth that is Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You is not two halves but four quarters, divided by as many distinct recording sessions, in upstate New York; Topanga Canyon, California; the Colorado Rocky Mountains; and Tucson, Arizona. The acclaimed indie-folk foursome has become known for their deliberate recording techniques, especially evident in 2019’s celebrated sister LPs U.F.O.F. and Two Hands — the former captured the lushness and claustrophobia of the Washington state forest where it was laid down, while the latter was purposefully open and austere, mimicking western Texas’ desolation. For the band’s fifth album, however, the sessions do not so much attempt to ...
Big Thief Unveil New Single ‘Simulation Swarm’
Indie-folk darlings Big Thief just released their newest single “Simulation Swarm” amid anticipation for their next record. “Simulation Swarm” stands out as an unreleased fan favorite performed at the band’s live shows. Adrianne Lenker continues to delve into her poetic folk roots with emotionally resonant lyricism layered over catchy guitar riffs. Prior to the release of “Simulation Swarm,” Big Thief released several singles including “Little Things/Sparrow,” “Certainty,” “Change,” “Time Escaping” and “No Reason/Spud Infinity.” The band’s last record, Two Hands, floored audiences in 2019 with their attention to subtle emotions and the ability to translate these emotions into deeply moving songs. Big Thief finds their strength in the narratives they craft. [embedded content][embedded conte...
Big Thief Announce Double Album Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You, Share ‘Time Escaping’
After months of sharing singles, Big Thief officially announced their fifth studio album, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You. The project will be the band’s most ambitious yet, clocking in at 20 tracks, and was recorded in four different locations: Upstate New York, Topanga Canyon, The Rocky Mountains, and Tucson, Arizona. Each locale drew up different feelings and studio vibes for the band, which helped reach the goal of “encapsulating the many different aspects of Adrianne [Lenker]’s songwriting and the band onto a single record,” explains a press release. “One of the things that bonds us together as a band is pure magic,” Lenker said in a statement. “I think we all have the same guide and none of us have ever spoken what it is because we couldn’t name it, but somehow, we are...
Listen to Big Thief’s Intimate New Song ‘Change’
Big Thief unveiled their latest single, “Change.” The band previewed the warm, intimate song at the recent Pitchfork Music Festival during their set. “Change” follows three recently released Big Thief singles, “Little Things, “Sparrow,” and “Certainty.” [embedded content] If a band could define wholesome, Big Thief takes the crown. Even the cover art for the new singles, currently on Spotify, is a pencil-sketched dinosaur, owl, bear, and bird singing around a campfire. The group announced a 2022 tour that kicks off in Europe and hits North America in the spring. Big Thief is set to headline two nights at Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles and an evening at Kings Theatre in Brooklyn, New York. Tickets are available at 10 a.m. local time on Friday, Oct. 8. Spotify will hold a presale for the tou...
Big Thief’s New Single Is an Effervescent, New York City Love Song
Big Thief is back. The Brooklyn-by-way-of-Berklee indie-rock band released their first new music since their 2019 album Two Hands. The single, “Little Things” is a skittering love letter that takes place in New York City. Singer-guitarist Adrianne Lenker encompasses that big/small duality in the way her voice whittles a declaration of love into a mumble: “The little things I like about you/ How you say when you say what you do.” The song was recorded with Shawn Everett at Five Star Studios last October and features one of the band’s most inventive arrangements yet. “It’s in this sort of evolving free time signature where the beat is always changing, so Max [Oleartchik] and I were just flowing with it and guessing where the downbeats were, which gives the groove a really cool, light feeling...
Big Thief’s Adrianne Lenker to Release Two New Albums
Big Thief singer/guitarist Adrianne Lenker released the lead single, “anything,” today (Sept. 4) from her songs album, which will join instrumentals as her fourth and fifth solo albums. The records are due on Oct.23, via 4AD. The video for “Anything” can be seen below. [embedded content] The writing and recording for Songs and instrumentals began in April, following Big Thief’s COVID-related tour cancellation. To escape New York City, Lenker found a cabin in Western Massachusetts to write and record, and it was done all digitally. “As I settled into the cabin over the course of a month, I grew really connected to the space itself,” Lenker said in a statement. “The one-room cabin felt like the inside of an acoustic guitar — it was such a joy to hear the notes reverberate...
