Big Thief - Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You

"Love Love Love" is SO loose-limbed & groovy... the "feel" reminds of me of some other artist or song that I can't at all put my finger on... maybe a Dylan thing(?)

I'm stuck on "Flower of Blood," a Ride song played at Cocteau Twins speed.

"Blue Lightning" is such a great closer... placing it at the end reminds me of "After Hours" (VU) a lil bit.

Gotta love an album that kicks off with, "Would you live forever, never die / While everything around passes? / Would you smile forever, never cry?"; and ends with, "I wanna live forever 'til I die / Yeah, I wanna live forever 'til I die..."

Been pulling through
Since the last time I touched you
Making do with an internet signal
Calling for the delivery to the front door

There is no reason to believe
No reason at all
Come together for a moment
Look around and dissolve
Like a feeling, like a flash
Like a fallin' eyelash on your sweater
Threading future through the pas

"blue lightning" as a closer kinda reminds me of "last orders please" by the faces, as done by workingman-era dead

yeah, that stretch caught my ear, too. (xpost)

she good

this band is just so generous

The Japanese bonus tracks are now on YouTube (sadly, "Dragon" is not the rocking version).

(...or maybe "happily," if that means there's a chance it may appear on the follow-up album!)

buck confirmed in a recent interview that the rock version they've been playing live was recorded in topanga canyon with shawn everett, hopefully it'll see the light of day soon enough. i think there's a decent chance it's on the follow-up

tucson version is fascinating but clearly not as compelling as the other two, a bonus track for a reason. there's also another version recorded in upstate new york we don't know anything about.

and "light is as is" is just fine

Just listened to this straight through twice, wow it's good. So many good songs!

and then they post pics like this in their IG Stories, haha

https://i.imgur.com/rwJCmVJ_d.webp?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium

Their persona as a band feels very late '60s in the way a lot of bands seemed like goofy weirdos at the time. Thinking of the San Francisco scene in particular.

i hadn't listened to these guys until i heard little things in the track poll but this album is really excellent. I don't know anything about their persona but this album really sounds to me like hippies re-writing Anodyne so them having a San Fran persona makes a lot of sense to me.

i'm surprised nobody's mentioned 'being there' as one of dragon's double album antecedents

^^^ otm, makes a lot of sense. I was half expecting it to be broken into two CDs.

It's kind of like Being There and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot all in one, the sprawl and the conscious artistic leap. (NB I've never been a huge fan of YHF, but like Kid A it felt like a band growing and stretching and knowing that they're growing and stretching, doing it deliberately — which this does too.)

Fan of the singles but the vocals wear me out throughout the album. Shame for me.

I once thought as you do.

then what happened?

Their persona as a band feels very late '60s in the way a lot of bands seemed like goofy weirdos at the time. Thinking of the San Francisco scene in particular.

You know, Jefferson Airplane is a really good touchstone for this band... even down to the distinctiveness of each album and even song in their catalogue; the prominence of the "rhythm section" as full band members; the weightiness of their concerns (which involve themes of nature & technology – though approached differently); and, indeed, something about the personalities / "presence" / styles of the folks involved. Some differences are that JA had a few different songwriters in the band (as opposed to mainly Adrianne), a non-guiter-playing singer, etc.

(JA had several different singers too, obv)

Wow, I have also never knowingly heard this band, and this is fantastic.

km - wasn’t sure if there was a slight tinge of facetiousness in your lauding Spud Infinity upthread, but now that I’m hearing it I don’t think so! Awesome song!

Song that caught me on the most recent listen was "Blurred View," which drifts through red-zone fuzz and rattling railroad percussion in a way that feels yearning and a little sinister.

Also, I loved Lenker's acoustic demo of "Simulation Swarm" last year, it's fun to compare it to the album version — you can hear what happens when it goes through the band filter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRReuyuyk9I

i absolutely love the solo in "simulation swarm," incredible to see her reproduce it on acoustic

She is among other things a terrific guitarist.

Love what max came up with on bass for that one.

12,000 Lines is a perfect little song

Yeah that bass part is gorgeous, the way it dances around the vocal line.

the whole band has fantastic chops but oleartchik is just phenomenal

Listening to this for the 3rd go-round & for the first time on headphones. Really digging it. It feels so artful but also uncalculated - natural, I guess, almost completely unpretentious while still reaching in a lot of different directions & not shying away from philosophy or sonic difficulty. What a gem.

Jaysus, they have over 2 million listeners on Spotify! When did that happen?

Over 1.5 million were me :-o

2,000 Lines is a perfect little song

― Heez, Tuesday, February 15, 2022 1

Indeed.

I've had a different part of this rattling around in my head every day since it came out. Today:

I believe in YouUuuuUU (feat. ghostly harmonising)

from the title track.

I'm still working on the "new" tracks but overall it's such a great album.
I don't think there's a single song I dislike so far which is rare for a double album, even the greatest ones !
Especially since I loved Adrianne's album Songs but somehow never really liked her output within the band format.
Right now I love "Blue Lightning".

after five tracks of this......this is the standard for modern country. accept nothing less

i came here wary of the hype, but i do now understand it, something has been accomplished here

i even like 'little things' now

Drinking a beeEEEeeEEeeer

12,000 Lines enhanced by the birdsong in the park I'm walking through

okay, some rough thoughts, insofar as anyone needs to know what I think

- this is obviously very, very good

- yes, the chords are fairly simple, classic country chords, with the odd wrinkle, and it is an album that looks back quite a lot, and fits within an established lineage of American Music. we don't have, as we do with say Weyes Blood, medieval interpolations, weird synth textures, progged-out drama

- but what we do have is a grand play with band dynamics, with the textures of the classic Americana instruments - the layers are kept intricate, and yet a space is retained in the mix; it has the wobbly, woozy, diaphanous quality of the best music of this sort. the chords therefore become a chassis for what's really going on here: little details, little things, guitars played (or recorded) strangely, delightful vocal harmony work, songs that develop subtly and intensify or quietly pull the rug

- it stays thoroughly engaging the whole way through, and uses its length to become something more ragged, inscrutable and dare I say literary than if it'd been, say, the first ten tracks + Simulation Swarm

- lenker's lyrics and vibe don't annoy me; she's endearing and I buy how she stretches for the cosmic, again in a more goofy, ragged way than her competition for American Songwriter Of The Moment. that is still an unfair framing though; maybe it'd be better to say that her lyrics and vibe are excellent, even if the main attraction here is how it all comes together

- my favourite bit is probably still the Drum Machine Bit, because I can't help being me, lol

on second listen though, the descending chord sequence that emerges out of the stellar debris of the title-track is challenging it

I think someone said something about “love love love” and the Band upthread and it does have a rugged intensity and SOUND that reminds me of some tracks from the Basement Tapes.

Is there a breakdown anywhere of which tracks are from which sessions? Would be interesting to compare the vibes of the different recording dates and locations.

Demo recorded at The Elf Inn
"Promise is a Pendulum"

Flying Cloud Studios, NY with Sam Evian
"Certainty"
"Sparrow"
"Heavy Bend"
"12,000 Lines"

Five Star Studios, Topanga Canyon, CA with Shawn Everett
"Time Escaping"
"Little Things"
"Blurred View"
"Simulation Swarm"

Studio In The Clouds, CO with Dom Monks
"Change"
"Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You"
"Flower of Blood"
"No Reason"
"Love Love Love"
"The Only Place"

Press On Studio, Tucson, AZ with Scott McMicken
"Spud Infinity"
"Red Moon"
"Dried Roses"
"Wake Me Up to Drive"
"Blue Lightning"

here you go (source is the liner notes)