Big Thief

Brooklyn-based Big Thief produces folk-tinged indie rock that draws descriptors such as raw, volatile, vulnerable, and intimate, owing much to the personal songwriting of singer and guitarist Adrianne Lenker. She started issuing solo recordings as a teenager in the mid-2000s, then joined eventual bandmate Buck Meek for a pair of duo EPs in 2014. Once the four-piece Big Thief assembled, their debut album Masterpiece appeared in 2016. Capacity followed the next year and registered on several charts, among them Independent Albums and Americana/Folk.

During intervals between Lenker’s solo releases, 2019 yielded two Big Thief LPs that reached the Billboard 200: U.F.O.F. and Two Hands. Both earned extensive year-end recognition and secured a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Album for U.F.O.F. The ambitious double album Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You returned the band to the Billboard 200 in 2022.

A native of Minneapolis, Lenker received her first guitar chords from her father during childhood and began composing songs at age ten. After her parents divorced when she was twelve, she devoted herself to music, an activity her father continued to encourage through her teenage years. Her earliest solo material surfaced in 2006 while she was still a teen. Disheartened by later sessions in Nashville, short of funds, and lacking a high school diploma, she pursued a summer program at Berklee College of Music in Boston with her father’s assistance; the effort led to a full-time scholarship. Lenker graduated in 2012 and relocated to Brooklyn.

Shortly after arriving in New York, she crossed paths with fellow Berklee alumnus Meek, whom she recalled from a brief earlier encounter in Boston when they shared a bill. The two quickly became close friends and musical counterparts, releasing the duo EPs A-Sides and B-Sides in 2014 before forming Big Thief with bassist Max Oleartchik and drummer James Krivchenia. Meanwhile Lenker signed with Saddle Creek, which issued her solo album Hours Were the Birds that same year.

The quartet’s first album, Masterpiece, arrived on Saddle Creek in 2016, the same year they performed at South by Southwest Festival and served as support on tours with Eleanor Friedberger, Yuck, Frankie Cosmos, and M. Ward. Their national television debut came with a March 2017 appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers. Capacity, the second album, followed in June and reached the Top 20 of the Billboard Heatseekers, independent, Americana/folk, and vinyl charts.

After touring behind Capacity—including a headlining run and dates with Conor Oberst—Meek released a self-titled solo album on Keeled Scales. Lenker then issued the spare Abysskiss via Saddle Creek later in 2018. Early the following year she toured with Abysskiss producer Luke Temple, while Meek opened a dozen North American dates on Jeff Tweedy’s solo acoustic tour.

Reconvening with Big Thief and returning to producer Andrew Sarlo, whose prior credits include Nick Hakim and Hand Habits, the more exploratory U.F.O.F. marked the band’s debut on 4AD in May 2019. They spent much of the remainder of the year touring North America and Europe, with stops at Norway’s Oya Festival and the U.K.’s Green Man Festival, before releasing their fourth album, Two Hands. Recorded days after the U.F.O.F. sessions at the remote Sonic Ranch Studios in Texas with Sarlo, the tracks were laid down live with minimal overdubs, allowing the sparsely populated surroundings to shape a rawer, sparser sound than its predecessor. Both albums entered the Top Ten of the Independent Albums chart and the lower half of the Billboard 200. As the year closed, Big Thief received a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Music Album for U.F.O.F.

With production handled by Krivchenia, who had supplied additional production on the debut, the sprawling double album Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You was recorded across four locations: California’s Topanga Canyon, Tuscan, the Colorado Rockies, and the Catskills. After being reduced from 45 songs to 20, it appeared on 4AD in February 2022 and reached a career-high position of number 31 on the Billboard 200. It was followed in July 2023 by the 7" “Vampire Empire” b/w “Born for Loving You.”