Big Thief - Two Hands

It's funny because I had a similar reaction and the two songs I came up with were Bones by Radiohead and She Don't Use Jelly by Flaming Lips. It def has a bit of a late 90s 120 minutes pastiche thing going in, but not in a bad way.

What I love the most about this record (other than just how great Lenker's songwriting always is) is how much it does with just the sound and vibe of the band playing together in a room. The record is probably the most sonically consistent and most reliant on live room sound so far and it does so much with just that. Just the incredible sonic presence of the band itself and the way the instruments meld like different metals into an alloy.

I don't think I'll ever accustom myself to her voice, sadly.

It's taken a couple years but I finally did.

I love the way it breaks up at the end of the last verse of Not. Very sincere and exposed.

... idk if i like this better than ufof and i don't know if i'll ever be able to know that, but it is the exact album i've been wanting them to make since masterpiece

It kind of feels like a synthesis of their approaches on Capacity and UFOF

Part of me kind of wishes the album just ended after Wolf. Cut Your Hair is v good though.

"the toy" is so perfect

*cut my hair

"replaced" is very red house painters

... idk if i like this better than ufof

― american bradass (BradNelson), Monday, October 14, 2019 8:32 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

never mind! this is their best record

I'm willing to concede that "Not" is their best song, possibly the best track of the year from anyone.

i'm personally addicted to the extremely organic and fluid way this band plays together

I wanna say it's their Amnesiac to their Kid A maybe..

Really love their bass player

i'm personally addicted to the extremely organic and fluid way this band plays together

― american bradass (BradNelson), Monday, October 14, 2019 12:55 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

very much so, it's quite intoxicating. refreshingly, they don't really sound exactly like anything else, but there's something in their kind of swirling, mystical alchemy that reminds me of people like Van Morrison and R.E.M.

i still get some Neil Young w/Crazy Horse once in awhile. on the more heavy songs, obv.

i hope they continue to remain vv prolific.

Teenage Dirtbag, Bones, She Don't Use Jelly... All otm!

Finding it impossible to see 'Two Hands' as anything other than a companion piece to UFOF. The former feels more... major key, a tad more 'optimistic' and relatively care free than UFOF? UFOF is like this warm cocoon to crawl into, in the small hours, feeling very small. A shelter. 'Two Hands' feel more open, taking on the world more in defiance. I will need both records equally along the way, I know that much.

'Not' is, of course, a magnificent piece of art.

this album is so good. love 'the toy' and 'replaced'

i'm personally addicted to the extremely organic and fluid way this band plays together

― american bradass (BradNelson), Monday, October 14, 2019 12:55 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah this. Even the way Adrienne and Buck play together -- I suspected the lead on Not was Adrienne, and based on the late show performance it is, but Buck is actually playing a kind of accompanying lead part rather than just chords and they really just blend together -- it reminds me a little of how Ian and Guy from Fugazi play together.

i was intrigued by 'century' and checked out this record.. man the band sounds great and the way the songs move around feels very distinctive but the singer really is a lot. she has a nice voice when she's singing low + controlled; mostly she isn't doing that, and it's awkward. reminds me of coco rosie at their worst in a lot of places. i dunno, maybe will grow on me like they seem to have for a lot of you.

Really love their bass player

― Heez, Monday, 14 October 2019 17:11 (three hours ago) link

This record also was the first time I noticed just how good their bass player is, but I also think that his ability to not stick out except at just the right moments is part of what makes him good.

Re: that CONTROVERSIAL Big Thief tweet, this is correct. Like 'em well enough but if I've learned anything from the '10s lists and really 20 years of paying attention to this, the tasteful indie-rock faves of the day are never safe from the next wave of critics. pic.twitter.com/fGnhgi824c

— Ian Cohen (@en_cohen) October 15, 2019

yes definite vibe of this off this band and all the critic friends who are swoony over them

Backlash cycles grow shorter and shorter

i had to research what the controversial big thief tweet was and i would like those three minutes of my life back thanks

I feel this more about Angel Olsen than Big Thief.

not sure i'd blame the collapse of the music media landscape on this phenomena which was observable at least ten years ago, and the fact that a nyt editor is pushing back against the deluge of love for big thief means the space for backlash isn't lost

also imo there is nothing "emperor's new clothes" about this band unless you just hear them as undistinguished folk rock, fleet foxes 2.0. which would be v superficial listening. which critics aren't immune from

I'm not against the argument that something better may be out there, but if so, let's see it.

it's a very big leap to go from 'i don't like this hyped artist' to 'everyone who likes this artist is faking it for clout.' it reminds me of a (much less malicious) version of right-wingers calling liberals/leftists 'virtue-signalers'

i don't begrudge the fact that 20,000 people pay to see billy joel at msg every month.

The Neil Young/Crazy Horse vibes are what take them to the next level for me, way above Fleet Foxes et al. I can't bring myself to stomach her voice, though – it's instinctive, and it's a damn shame.

agreed that it's a shame

'everyone who likes this artist is faking it for clout' is basically chris ott's classic indie rock conspiracy isn't it lmao

Might have to do with the voice as presumed seat of subjectivity and how it needs to partially mirror your own sense of self or whatever. Something about Lenker's vocals registers as inauthentic or false to my ears and no amount of discourse or autosuggestion can change that (well, for now). Everything else about them is wonderful.

but where is the 'hype' here? they've just grown steadily and got better over a number of years by... making consistent records and being a good live band over 5 years. its not like the attention is sudden or some sort of cooked up PR hype here... the PR isn't making the band - the band being good is what makes the PR job easy?

journos shouting hype almost always translates to them being late to the party, and being convinced that if a band could get attention without them noticing, they must have been bamboozled by nefarious means

i made a thread for masterpiece bc i heard the title track and "real love" and thought they were pretty tight and also at the time they were on saddle creek, who put out hop along's painted shut the year before. both bands felt special in a similar way. i'm def an unwitting victim of the pr machine

I have lectured my charges over the years endlessly about the difference between "not liking something" and "something not being good" and I argue this band is not good. People love what they love. I'm just making a critical statement and a social observation.

— cganz (@mehpatrol) October 15, 2019

I feel this more about Angel Olsen than Big Thief.

Agreed. I only listened to the new album once but it was a slog, particularly towards the end.

Reads like trolling tbh.

xp

Agreed. I only listened to the new album once but it was a slog, particularly towards the end.

― kornrulez6969, Tuesday, October 15, 2019 8:03 AM (forty-five seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

"I only listened to the new album once"

journos shouting hype almost always translates to them being late to the party,

OTM

When I ask if she will actually take a day job sometime soon, she responds instantly: “Yeah, probably. I’m not afraid to slow down.” The only thing that matters to her is longevity, flame-keeping. “I’m not afraid of needing to work at a diner. I know I can be happy doing that. I was just as happy living out of a busted RV, burning CDs and selling them, and playing shows for no one. I was happy doing that; it felt right.”

Yes, this definitely sounds like someone who is thirsting to be the new indie-rock queen. Nobody's saying you HAVE to like this band but the guy who tweeted out the original thing about "emperor's new clothes" just seems really small, not to mention a total jag.

pretty sure it's a lady, but otherwise yeah

caryn is a woman yes

Haha my mistake for assuming someone who would unironically use the phrase “my charges” was a man

but where is the 'hype' here?

i dunno about hype, i think i might have heard of them before but didn't really know anything about them—a journalist teased the super-positive pitchfork review also in super positive terms and i took a listen. that journalist, along with what was just said here, seemed to be keyed to the idea of the band/records being special moreso than good, which is i think where the potential for critical disproportion comes in.

what's this all about? I don't have three minutes

This B*g Th*ef thing is the emperor's new clothes of 2019 rock, don't even think of @-ing me

— cganz (@mehpatrol) October 15, 2019

yes

So far I'm only seeing it on RYM, so grain of salt and all that, but they are showing the forthcoming album title as Dragon New Warm Mountain, I Believe in You. Which is interesting since it's pretty close to lyrics from Adrienne's solo track "anything":

Dragon in the new warm mountain
Didn’t you believe in me?

looks like some portuguese distributor leaked that, also with the detail of feb 11 release date

I’ve had trouble getting into the latest EP. I can’t help but feel like both the songwriting and production have gotten…fuzzier? Like there was an immediacy to Masterpiece and Capacity and still to a lot of UFOF and Two Hands that feels like is getting lost. But I’ll give it more chances and look forward to the double record.

the "change" single having all the previously released new singles on streaming is just a common tactic to boost streaming numbers these days fwiw

don't really think the new songs are less immediate, "change" and "certainty" are both fairly direct folk-rock tracks. "little things" is maybe 'fuzzy' in how its constantly shifting rhythms make it near-impossible to keep track of but it's also one of the best & most immediate things they've ever done. the only one of the new songs i'm not huge on is "sparrow" which is just so repetitive.

The new material lacks the raw-nerve feel of Two Hands (not surprising, the group changes up its sound with each album); and some of the country-folk songwriting does sound more conventional than what we've been accustomed to from them... but I think these songs really will need to be heard in context of the full album.

Also – I was joking about Physical Graffiti, but I do sort of have the sense that we're hearing, say, "Custard Pie" and "By the Seaside," while "Ten Years Gone" is waiting in the wings (in the form of "Time Escaping").

I also think "Red Moon" is gonna be an absolute jam

the raw-nerve feel of Two Hands

"dragon" though!

Yeah - there's yr "In My Time of Dying"

I think I like "Change" the most of the new songs so far (just the studio recordings, haven't delved into the live stuff yet). It's got a magical simplicity, but the cumulative effect of the lyrics is really weighty

Also I love the production--it sounds like they're playing in a circle and I'm standing in the middle

they are 100% a hippie band, luckily that hasn't stopped them from making good music

― Mr. Cacciatore (Moodles), Tuesday, October 5, 2021 5:55 PM (six days ago) bookmarkflaglink

OTM, in the best way possible--I get warm cosmic hug vibes like the best of Hunter/Garcia

I don't like it when she does the frail grandma voice.

Which is a good word actually for what I don't like so much about the songs on this four-song, they sound a bit frail to me. I don't like this super lo-fi recording aesthetic, I don't think it suits them well. They sounded a lot stronger on the other releases, especially the first two. They're not bad songs or anything, but I don't love any of them.

Plenty of the other new material posted above seems more promising, so yeah, I hope these are the weaker tracks/b-sides.

I love "Certainty" and "Little Things" so much, the other two are... fine? I feel like they will work much better in the context of a double album though.

xxxp at first, I thought you were referring to when Adrianne calls out, "That's my grandma!" – in the Red Moon house show clip.

lol, no I mean that voice she does on, e.g., Change, that sounds like she's just come to the door in a babushka scarf and wasn't expecting us but it's ok if we come in and have some candied fruit

I somehow didn't notice how flat she sings before I watched this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oODr-7y3M0

guys, I hate to be the ultimate buzzkill – but I was trying to figure out which Big '80s song the "Little Things" chord progression reminded me of (something by Peter Gabriel? Bruce Hornsby?), and finally realized... it's Toto's "Africa" ;-D

some Sarah Brand moments there xp

She looks/sounds a little exhausted there imo.

africa is a jam, more bands should borrow from africa

Sarah Brand comparison? I might need to have a lie down.

guys, I hate to be the ultimate buzzkill – but I was trying to figure out which Big '80s song the "Little Things" chord progression reminded me of (something by Peter Gabriel? Bruce Hornsby?), and finally realized... it's Toto's "Africa" ;-D

― juristic person (morrisp), Monday, October 11, 2021 2:22 PM (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

it is very "solsbury hill"

xp The whole band looks/sounds a little wiped out in that clip...

Yeah, I thought it just looked like they were wiped out after being on the road for awhile.

What's that "chord" that Buck Meek seems to play so often, e.g. on the first song on that video - Shoulders - at around the 58 second mark?

Stretching over 5 or 6 frets

Dunno why I put the word chord in inverted commas. It'll be a chord of some kind.

Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That Buck Meek played, and it pleased the board

That so-called chord

I'd say he's either barring in a A major shape with his pointer finger on and then playing melodic lines off that with his remaining fingers, or he's in an alternate tuning that has necessitated a big stretch.

But judging by chords he plays later in the piece, he's in standard tuning.

it looks like he's doing a big stretch to grab two notes that are 5 frets apart. i doubt it's a full chord.

that note could be played on a higher string without the stretch, so i think its either easier for him to pick or he's just showing off. i think it's the latter but it's OK cuz it's subtle and he rules

After watching that live video, she sounds under the note to me a lot of the time on studio recordings as well, though, if not as strongly. It's not even a bad thing, necessarily, just something I hadn't noticed. I like a lot of singers who bend pitch.

that note could be played on a higher string without the stretch, so i think its either easier for him to pick or he's just showing off. i think it's the latter but it's OK cuz it's subtle and he rules

― diamonddave85​​ (diamonddave85), Tuesday, October 12, 2021 11:56 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

he has enormous hands from what i can tell

buck not so meek after all

Couple friends of mine saw him in a coffee shop the morning of a show here, before pitchfork. He ordered an XL magnum size

maybe he should change his name to... Buck Naked

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/AxuBVGMCAAI7KYv.png

(I realize it's time for me to resign from ILM after making that joke)

Looks like Consequence of Sound published, and then deleted, a promo piece on the new album yesterday?

there was a pre-save link for the album that lead to that article which is gone too

seems like album announcement & "time escaping" are coming in the next week

& album title is dragon new warm mountain i believe in you releasing on feb 11 as previously leaked

"time escaping" coming in the next week

if this is true... the "most wonderful time of the year" is coming early!

yeah there was a pre-save link for "time escaping" that got dug up too & it apparently indicated a release next week

That's good news, I hope we don't have to wait too much longer! I'm surprised by how much I'm anticipating this record.

The bass playing on "Not" is an underrated feature of "Not"