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BIG THIEF Announce New Album, Two Hands, Due 11 October
Big Thief are pleased to announce their new album, Two Hands, due on 11th October, and present its lead single, ‘Not’.
Listen to 'Not', https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIcVwH47uxQ&feature=youtu.be
Big
Thief had only just finished work on their 3rd album,
U.F.O.F. >– “the
celestial twin” – days before in a cabin studio in the
woods of Washington State. Now it was time to birth
U.F.O.F.’s sister album – “the earth twin” –
Two Hands. 30 miles west of El Paso,
surrounded by 3,000 acres of pecan orchards and only a
stone’s throw from the Mexican border, Big Thief (a.k.a.
Adrianne Lenker, Buck Meek, Max Oleartchik,
and James Krivchenia) set up their
instruments as close together as possible to capture their
most important collection of songs yet. Where U.F.O.F.
layered mysterious sounds and effects for levitation,
Two Hands grounds itself on dried-out, cracked desert
dirt. In sharp contrast to the wet environment of the
U.F.O.F. session, the southwestern Sonic Ranch studio
was chosen for its vast desert location. The 105-degree
weather boiled away any clinging memories of the green trees
and wet air of the previous session. Two Hands had to
be completely different— an album about the Earth and the
bones beneath it. The songs were recorded live with almost
no overdubs. All but two songs feature entirely live vocal
takes, leaving Adrianne’s voice suspended above the mix in
dry air, raw and vulnerable as ever.
“Two Hands has
the songs that I’m the most proud of; I can imagine myself
singing them when I’m old,” says Adrianne.
“Musically and lyrically, you can’t break it down
much further than this. It’s already bare-bones.”
Lyrically this can be felt in the poetic blur of the
internal and external. These are political songs without
political language. They explore the collective wounds of
our Earth. Abstractions of the personal hint at war,
environmental destruction, and the traumas that fuel it.
Across the album, there are genuine attempts to point the
listener towards the very real dangers that face our planet.
When Adrianne sings “Please wake up,” she’s
talking directly to the audience. Engineer Dom
Monks and producer Andrew Sarlo,
who were both behind U.F.O.F., capture the live
energy as instinctually and honestly as possible. Sarlo
teamed up with James Krivchenia to mix the album, where they
sought to emphasize raw power and direct energy inherent in
the takes. The journey of a song from the stage to the
record is often a difficult one. Big Thief’s advantage is
their bond and loving centre as a chosen family. They spend
almost 100% of their lives together working towards a sound
that they all agree upon. A band with this level of
togetherness is increasingly uncommon. If you ask drummer
James Krivchenia, bassist Max Oleartchik or guitarist Buck
Meek how they write their parts, they will
describe—passionately—the experience of hearing Adrianne
present a new song, listening intently for hints of parts
that already exist in the ether and the undertones to draw
out with their respective instruments. With raw power and
intimacy, Two Hands folds itself
gracefully into Big Thief’s impressive
discography. This body of work grows deeper and more
inspiring with each new album. For
their upcoming North American and European shows, Big Thief
will be partnering with Plus1. $1 from every ticket sold in
the US will be going to benefit Little Kids Rock and Youth
Speaks, while shows in Canada will benefit DANS LA RUE,
Sketch, and UNYA. $1 from every ticket sold for the 2020
European dates will be going to benefit Hangarmusik , while
the 2020 UK shows will benefit Girls Rock London (GRL!).
Praise for U.F.O.F.: “A true
masterpiece of folk music from a band working together at
the highest level.” - Pitchfork (9.2,
Best New Music) "The impact is so quiet you might miss
it, but it’s revelatory enough that you can’t escape
it." - Rolling Stone
**** "U.F.O.F. doesn’t feel crafted, it
feels invoked from the spaces between the four hearts
involved" - The Wire “Full of
subtle charm, it’s an album of deceptive depths in which
to immerse yourself.” - The Observer
**** "There's a mystical bind to U.F.O.F. that
grips the listener and never lets go" - Uncut
(9/10) “This ought to be the ‘difficult’
third album, but it is their best yet.” - The
Sun (4.5/5) "Their most stylistically
ambitious record yet." - Loud And Quiet
(9/10) "A record full of striking transitions
and lucid dreaming." - MOJO
**** "A profound and poised third album" -
Record Collector **** “A beguiling,
constantly surprising record.” - Q
**** BIG THIEF ONLINE:
Next week, on Monday 19th
August, Big Thief will play a very special intimate show for
fans at Bush Hall, London. To ensure fans are able to
attend, the only way to get access to buy tickets is by
signing up via No Purchase Necessary or pre-ordering Two
Hands on any format via 4AD. Sign up or pre-order before
Noon UK on Thursday 15th August to receive a unique code,
with tickets on-sale from 10AM UK on Friday 16th.
bigthief.net
youtube.com/bigthief
@
bigthiefmusic
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