Big Thief - Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8C_ax0XYn1E

here's the early 2020 live version of "time escaping" for anyone who's curious

It's music! :)

Change 4:55
Time Escaping 3:48
Spud Infinity 5:34
Certainty 3:07
Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You 4:43
Sparrow 5:11
Little Things 5:44
Heavy Bend 1:36
Flower of Blood 4:24
Blurred View 4:06
Red Moon 4:19
Dried Roses 2:35
No Reason 3:47
Wake Me Up to Drive 3:43
Promise Is a Pendulum 5:12
12,000 Lines 2:59
Simulation Swarm 4:12
Love Love Love 4:13
The Only Place 3:14
Blue Lightning 3:51

here's track times

They're obviously hippies, but (not to split hairs) I don't really get a "stoner" vibe from this era... it's more focused, conscious, and "present" than that.

The final verse of "Time Escaping" knocks me out:

Only the winter wind survives
After the heat rush feeds and thrives
After the bushfire burns and dies
Frozen and bitter
Desert ground so cold and clean
Spreading out like a magazine
Reading the dirt like gossip
What do the weeds say? They say
“Everything, everything, everything falls through
Each dimension breaks in two
Like the two hands clapping
Like the two wings flapping
Everything, everything, everything for free
As it all eventually
Turns to dust and petal
Molten rock and meadow"

i have always been lukewarm on this band but i like all these songs and am now officially stoked for this long-ass album

love that there is a new thread for this new album, really looking forward to this

just watched a couple of live videos

they all just fit together so well. the four of them, i mean.

I'm pretty lukewarm on most of the new songs released so far but I like the studio Time Escaping more and more. Hope there is more stuff like that that goes in interesting new sonic directions and not just the woodsy folksy stuff like Change (which is not *bad* but seems a bit by the numbers).

No Reason / Spud Infinity are out now

some beautiful guitar in "No Reason"

"no reason" is so gorgeous wow

love the flute

I listened to these tracks like 5 times in row this morning... can't wait for the album, it's gonna be so great!

"no reason", "little things" and "time escaping" all some of the very very best things they've ever done

Best working band right now

Going thru the tracknoms rn and Time Escaping is....wild? And kinda great? Reminds me of when Wilco do something weird, like Art Of Almost or something

i think 'american radiohead' works better for big thief (though still obviously pretty silly) than it ever did for wilco

I think they are on the REM track and they are just coming out of their IRS years

is that to suggest this will be their “Green”?

the coda of "no reason" really takes it to the next level. while "spud infinity" is good but absolutely a minute too long

I think “Spud Infinity” is an amazing song… that juxtaposition of the earthy and the abstract, right there in the title, is beautifully realized in the lyric.

I'm at a loss on how to describe/characterize these new songs... they're "cosmic Americana" in a certain way, but not in a way that usually fits that definition (and I wouldn't necessarily RIYL them along those lines). They're intense, joyful, lucid meditations on nature, time, and reality; using Americana as a vehicle, but not at all contstrained by what that term normally entails.

is that to suggest this will be their “Green”?

― Western® with Bacon Flavor, Thursday, December 16, 2021 bookmarkflaglink

yes, possibly!

this is the best this band has ever sounded, to me

(besides "Not")

TE >>> Not imo

i've listened to "little things" so many times. now when i'm having a beer i like to sing "drinking a beeeeer" to myself

Haha, me too :)

Yeah, maybe ... TE > Not ... maybe Little Things, too. i didn't necessarily mean forever, just that i've listened to Not a thousand times and these haven't had a chance to overtake it yet.

i didn't say that, but i was thinking it ... or something

collectively, though, i love these songs

“Spud Infinity” reminds me of Michael Hurley. Fantastic.

"little things", "time escaping" & "no reason" all > "not", as good as "not" is

I was just forwarded this (haven't read it yet): https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/big-thief-new-album-adrianne-lenker-interview-1272814/

it's a good read, most interesting tidbits are that "wake me up to drive" is "drum-machine pop" (which makes sense actually revisiting the live version) & they directly suggest that there could be another album's worth of material to be released from the dragon sessions

!!

they were already hinting that it was a possibility in a previous interview (45 songs were recorded so it could even be another double), just a bit more here

Through it all, the band held on to a firm internal sense of self. “We all have our own Big Thief-i-ness barometers,” says Krivchenia. “We did some stuff that, listening back to it, we were like, ‘Wow, people would flip if they heard this… but it’s not Big Thief-y.'”

Aw… don’t do me like that, man

japanese version has two bonus tracks, "dragon new warm mountain i believe in you (tucson version)" and "light is as is". the tucson sessions were where they recorded the album's rootsier material so i imagine it'll be quite a different take on "dragon"

I am very much hoping that 2022 is the year I get to see Big Thief live. None of the currently announced dates are anywhere near me, but maybe there will be more ...

Through it all, the band held on to a firm internal sense of self. “We all have our own Big Thief-i-ness barometers,” says Krivchenia. “We did some stuff that, listening back to it, we were like, ‘Wow, people would flip if they heard this… but it’s not Big Thief-y.'”

Aw… don’t do me like that, man

― i woke up alarmed (morrisp), Friday, January 7, 2022 12:27 AM (eight hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is such an important part of being a good band

"Simulation Swarm" is out now. Sounds a little like something off U.F.O.F., with a country turn in the chorus.

so good, love the fretless bass

DRINKING A BEEEEEEEEEER

I stopped listening to the pre-release tracks, I'm just ready to luxuriate in the whole thing.

this album is going to be incredible and i am already annoyed at how it will inevitably renew the big thief backlash

not so sure - i'm someone who was not a very big Big Thief fan (i found the songs sort of muddy and land-locked) but almost everything in the past year has been extraordinary, full of grace and lift, and it's turned me from backlasher into fan

ive been listening to the pre release tracks as a mini album of sorts, after ignoring the stuff for nearly all of 2021. flows nicely, tho nearly every track they’ve released since “little things” has been better than that one

i think that “spud infinity” is my favorite, big old weird america feeling going on

I'm extremely ready for this album to be of varying quality, like all their albums ;)

is there a big thief backlash? i don't want to meet these people irl

The little woodwind & gtr jam at the end of "No Reason" is such hot sh1t... I just love it

exact same sitch as sean gramophone for me.

there will be a backlash, but it'll be dwarfed by the "album of the year / america's best band" hype, i bet.

I thought the backlash happened already (that NYT editor who called them "emperor's new clothes" or whatever)

clips of most of the new songs here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3vTq6RELDM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUoCYlM8r9g

more of "grandmother"

second drummer is reportedly jon nellen, who's played with nick hakim before

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAqYmRwRmM0

most of "los angeles"

xp - yeah they just posted on Insta that Justin Felton and Jon Nellen will be playing on their tour

https://www.reddit.com/r/bigthief/comments/1egtl28/missed_the_first_few_seconds_but_heres_another/

full recording of "grandmother" is nearly 7 minutes! it rules

gonna turn it all into rock & roll!

a lot more full recordings of new songs now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSMoz6XZzlY

"terrifying" (kinda math rock-y!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2ckkBAROPc

"muscle memory"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pFdtnVa-mU

"space and time"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2NaAz3GR6M

"more than anything"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ivn2n4aZA0

full show with a bunch more new songs

oh this absolute diva pic.twitter.com/hJL3dxMnp9

— lia 🚀 (@beeefyfridgers) August 7, 2024

ngl, I would totally listen to a Big Thief 2024 song called "Friends 4ever 4 A Day"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAzlkFL-aYc

that whole album's on youtube, it's from 2006 when she was 14 and is nearly completely unrecognisable as her. a few songs are written by her dad & a bunch are co-written with him. it's got nothing on her later work (the lyrics in particular are lacking) but it's remarkably accomplished

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqxSRdVvgH8

there's also this follow-up EP of tracks from a second album (no idea if it ever got a release) that's a bit more recognisable as her

Influences
Bjork, The Cranberries, Sheryl Crow, Jewel, Nora Jones, Annie Lennox Sarah Mclaughlin, Pat Metheny, Six-pence non the richer, Switchfoot
Sounds Like
Vocals: Leigh Nash meets Nora Jones meets Jewel meets Sheryl Crow. Guitar: Emiliana Torrini meets Elliott Smith meets Jewel meets Pat Metheny. Writing Style: Depth of Jewel, Feel of Rachel Yamagata & Sheryl Crow, Edge of Switchfoot.

from her myspace bio at the time

oh her dad is in the youtube comments saying the full second album never got a release lol

I drunkenly purchased Stages of the Sun when it showed up on Discogs. For an embarrassing sum.

As soon as I bought it, another showed up from the same seller. And another. Dude has a case of them somehow. Maybe rescued them from the dump.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd-67cMpnjA

another new song!

Someone on the Big Thief subreddit has uploaded a full concert soundboard quality recording from a recent gig in Sweden

https://www.reddit.com/r/bigthief/s/6ODLU0cs2B

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4hxQ4xpidg

it's from this video. quite a few of the new songs, but this version of "simulation swarm" doesn't quite work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEjLF6wrW5I

yet another new song, "taker" (not "hand through table", that's the one from two days ago but this video has the title mixed up)

Another good one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t34LAtkD_Vs

full recording of "hand through table"

According to setlist.fm they have played 14 new tracks on this summer tour so far, surely this must mean the new album is coming soon, right? Right?

they're probably recording sometime in the next two months, their last tour date is later this week and adrianne doesn't go back on tour until november. it doesn't seem like they've recorded an album yet, the arrangements for the new material have been shifting around a bit, they're still figuring them out.

on top of the 14 new songs they've played live this year, there's another 10 unreleased songs that adrianne's played live this year solo, and a bunch more they were playing on tour in 2022/2023.

not to mention the supposed other double album's worth of material recorded during the dragon sessions

i'm not sure if they're going to release that but they said last year it was still a possibility they'd put it out as a stopgap release

they're finally recording at the moment and there's a tiny snippet of a song here: https://www.instagram.com/bigthiefmusic/reel/DFYzteKRb2c/

word is they've brought in laraaji to play on the new album too

I never got into this album, but I'm obsessed with 'Blurred View' after watching this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZZB4wy91Lc

Would that the whole album sounded like this.

https://store.bigthief.net/collections/featured/products/big170002-passional-relations-ep-digital-download

new outtakes ep as a la fires benefit, mostly from the dwnmibiy sessions

these outtakes are lovely to hear, but still it's pretty easy to understand why none made an album

"imagination" is the best thing here just for the feedback section in the middle

"light as light" was already released as "light is as is" on the japanese release of dnwmibiy, maybe they forgot about that lol?

the vocal production "waiting on blue" combined with the organ is really nice

the full band of "zombie girl" is nice but it's not better than the solo version on songs, the band don't really manage to add much to it

"shadow too" seems to be a pre-ufof/two hands demo (they played it live a few times in 2018)

Feels like a lifetime since New Warm Dragon came out

Change / Because I Got High bootleg

sounds like we might be getting new album news next week

it turned out that was just the (all-time great) adrianne lenker live album, but it looks like "incomprehensible" might be the first single from the big thief album

https://www.stereogum.com/2310001/big-thief-tease-new-music-with-incomprehensible-posters-in-nyc/news/

album announcement & presumably "incomprehensible" are coming tomorrow

https://i.imgur.com/NNpyJYl.png

this might be the cover

the title might be 'double infinity'

Tomorrow is the announcement of our new album!!! This photograph was taken by the extraordinary Genesis Báez pic.twitter.com/TUOkFai9Se

— Big Thief (@bigthiefmusic) June 2, 2025

Oh my!

yeah baby

the title might be 'double infinity'

no spud in the photo is kind of a letdown

potato times potato equals lime everyone knows that

i'm assuming the lime is a reference to "no fear" which goes "there is no time, round like a lime, destiny"