Having released a pair of Billboard 200-charting albums in 2019, Big Thief were on tour in Europe in early 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic put an abrupt end to plans. Bandleader Adrianne Lenker returned home to New York, then left for safer quarters in a remote part of Massachusetts upon learning of an available mountain rental near friends. Alone with not much more than her guitar in a spartan one-room cabin, she was taken with the acoustics of the space and soon invited engineer Philip Weinrobe to join her to record an ...
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Having released a pair of Billboard 200-charting albums in 2019, Big Thief were on tour in Europe in early 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic put an abrupt end to plans. Bandleader Adrianne Lenker returned home to New York, then left for safer quarters in a remote part of Massachusetts upon learning of an available mountain rental near friends. Alone with not much more than her guitar in a spartan one-room cabin, she was taken with the acoustics of the space and soon invited engineer Philip Weinrobe to join her to record an acoustic album. Written mostly on-site, songs and instrumentals turned into a double album consisting of 11 solo songs and a set of guitar and windchime improvisations. Recorded on a borrowed Otari 8 Track tape machine, it begins with a false start and the folk-style "two reverse," a -- for solo Lenker -- typically intimate, vulnerable song consisting only of brittle voice, guitar, and shaker. Much of the album continues in kind, with subtle variations that include the delicately layered "anything" ("I don't wannna talk about anything/I wanna kiss, kiss your eyes again") and "come," which captures the sound of a steady rain. Presented as two extended tracks totaling 37 minutes, the instrumentals portion of the release was pieced together from a daily wind-down routine and includes a second track appropriately titled "mostly chimes." While not an essential album for fans of Big Thief, admirers of Lenker's solo work will find another reliably solid, touching set of songs here, and the instrumentals may offer ambient comfort for late, late nights or the sequestered. ~ Marcy Donelson, Rovi
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