Big Thief - Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You

the two extended breaks in "no reason" are so good, really transcendent stuff

richard hardy plays the flute on it, he's some old session guy who played on a lot of carole king albums in the 80s. he was apparently just playing flute in a lookout tower near the studio & they heard it and loved it and asked him to come play with them on "no reason"

I spent the last two days listening to everything in Lenker's catalog on Spotify, and every bit of it is good to great. I thought I didn't like the first two Big Thief albums but they're both awesome?

haha, yeah, after some of the posts above about preferring the first couple albums - which i totally get! - i listened to them again and found myself aching to come back to the new one

I've heard these guys on podcasts and in mixes before, but I wouldn't have thought to give the album a spin without this thread. It's amazing. "No Reason" is as good as anything I've heard in the past five years.

it must be the sauce!

that's my grandma!

whatsa gonna taaaaaaaaaaaaaake

"Change" too

god, i hope that i have the strength and patience and wisdom to not blow-up when, 40 years from now, i'm watching whatever television is and an ad comes on, and it's bbq ketchup ("original 1992 formula!") and then the jingle goes "whatsa gonnnnna taaaaaaaaaaake? (to ketchup?!), and it's such a bastardization of the original but I know that either the musicians or their families will get that money, and also that i'm confident that the bbq ketchup is pretty good because i trust big thief to at least approve of the product

Probably one of the better albums to feature a teddy bear’s butt on the cover, for sure

haha, yeah, after some of the posts above about preferring the first couple albums - which i totally get! - i listened to them again and found myself aching to come back to the new one

My entry point was U.F.O.F., and the other night I put on that and Two Hands — both of which I like a lot — and they already felt like precursors, not quite fully formed things.

man ... when's the last time we had a thread that was this universally positive about a new album? i realize there have been some ILM love-fests, but this is some kind of reaction.

big thief is for the people

big thief is people

“Love Love Love” feels underbaked to me, otherwise I’m having trouble finding anything or change about this album.

Was thinking last night that something I appreciate about this album is how Extremely Offline it is. I mean, there's one lyric about getting an internet signal. But otherwise it could've easily been made before the internet, before the exhausting digital spectacle of everything being beamed into my head for all waking hours. I feel like a lot of artists think they need to engage with The Discourse or Today's Issues in some way or another to make an important album, but they don't really do either of those things. And that's why it already feels timeless. It's just songs about people, nature, relationships, and potatoes played by people who just love making music together. After being stuck inside for a lot of the last couple of years and being sucked into an internet black-hole, it's been a reminder for me of the importance of all those things. I think that's partially why it feels like a wonderful breath of fresh air despite its deep roots in many parts of the folk/rock canon.

I’ll chime in. My wife recently moved to Savannah for a new job but I’m staying behind in Houston with the kids to finish out the school year. I downloaded this album while in Savannah, helping her get settled. It’s been the perfect music for all of this. Hopeful, melancholy, wide open. I can’t stop playing it

Was thinking last night that something I appreciate about this album is how Extremely Offline it is. I mean, there's one lyric about getting an internet signal. But otherwise it could've easily been made before the internet, before the exhausting digital spectacle of everything being beamed into my head for all waking hours. I feel like a lot of artists think they need to engage with The Discourse or Today's Issues in some way or another to make an important album, but they don't really do either of those things. And that's why it already feels timeless. It's just songs about people, nature, relationships, and potatoes played by people who just love making music together. After being stuck inside for a lot of the last couple of years and being sucked into an internet black-hole, it's been a reminder for me of the importance of all those things. I think that's partially why it feels like a wonderful breath of fresh air despite its deep roots in many parts of the folk/rock canon.

― triggercut, Thursday, February 17, 2022 10:43 PM (thirty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

while I see this its the opposite feeling that excites me about it -- at some level it feels very of its time, that it only makes sense now, imho. its ironically anti-trend considering how trendy it is -- the fact that its 'working' is a tribute to how compelling it is, imho. like...2008 hipster fleetwood mac standom x NPR?? is how id describe its surface texture. but at this stage its effective in spite of those things not because of them

I didn't know spud was used as slang for potato anywhere outside of the UK until this album

"Like a feeling, like a flash
Like a fallen eyelash
On your sweater, threading future through the past"

XP same Nate Woolls, thought it was an orrible blood sausage expression

I'm all-in on the love for this but am surprised Whiney hasn't made a side-eye poll of the most gushing phrases.

Bring it on

I didn't know spud was used as slang for potato anywhere outside of the UK until this album

- at some level it feels very of its time, that it only makes sense now, imho. its ironically anti-trend considering how trendy it is -- the fact that its 'working' is a tribute to how compelling it is, imho. like...2008 hipster fleetwood mac standom x NPR??

otm

It couldn't exist outside this histori-musical moment, and, of course, as a culmination after six years.

And, yeah, what was the album that brought deej, me, Brad, Karl, tipsy, etc. together?

I didn't know spud was used as slang for potato anywhere outside of the UK until this album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad0w59lBfXU

Low I feel like gets pretty much universal acclaim on ILM but they have been around so long there's not the same enthusiasm as this

imagining a fourth verse of “spud infinity” in which lenker marvels that somebody so small could be so great at dunking

Song I woke up with in my head today: “Certainty.” Love that chorus.

Also, just in case REM hasn’t been mentioned somewhere in the list of influences here, they deserve a nod. Particularly Reckoning-Fables era. And some Lenker’s lyrics have a Stipeian allusiveness.

Wake me up to drive

Certainty is the only song I'm not sure about tbh. It sounds like something from a previous album and when it comes on I think it's going to be No Reason which I prefer

Also: WHAT'S IT GONNA TAAAAAAAKKE

I am indifferent to Low, but then I've not heard much. That one album I heard made my ears feel funny

So, not *totally* indifferent!

(Listen to Low, they're brilliant.)

Okay

I'm a bit busy listening to something else RN though

WHAT'S IT GONNA TAAAAAAAAKE

tribute to how compelling it is, imho. like...2008 hipster fleetwood mac standom x NPR??

otm

It couldn't exist outside this histori-musical moment, and, of course, as a culmination after six years.

I don't hear much if any
I think we all got off on this tangent of comparing it to other double albums

perennial favourites against which new releases must be measured...extended discussions of tuning and technique...ilm is rockist again, rejoice!

Can you guys elaborate on this? I have no idea what it refers to (I don’t really hear Fleetwood Mac in Big Thief… who were their 2008 stans?)

― punching the clock on a tambo (morrisp),

Oh, I was making the perfectly banal point that albums don't exist outside their historical moment. Big Thief couldn't have recorded Dragon in 2016 for a number of reasons.

Triggercut OTM, booming post.

wow, the big thief community at genius is just completely wrong, very non-scholarly and close-minded

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

What do we think of "Heavy Bend"? Kind of a filler track if any such thing exists on this album, but there's something cool about it. The slightly r'n'b-esque shuffle and the record-skip style repetition of the title's name

NexusRasp only has 32 points. i already 545. that means i'm 17x more of a genius about music. and they're downvoting MY annotation?? wow

I love you KM

<3

you should join the genius community and upvote my annotation, get it back into the non-negatives! also i'm about to bust out my "i am the world's undisputed #1 fan of this song" annotation, once the ilm poll concludes today or tomorrow. NexusRasp has no idea what is coming

NEXUSRASP!!

i like Heavy Bend a lot! it ushers in the little 3-song section - heavy bend, flower of blood, blurred view - that closes the first record. i really love that section but it feels different than the rest of the album. ufo mentioned that flower of blood kind of sounds like the cocteau twins, and then alfred said it sounded like a ride song played at cocteau speed, which i think is even more accurate. blurred view really captured my attention on first listen. in fact, for some reason it was the only song i put a little "heart" by, upon first lesson. i don't think it's one of my favorites, but i appreciate the sequence because going into red moon from that feels like coming in from the cold to find friends and a meal cooking, that kind of thing

I only got this album on Wednesday and I already feel like I have a deep personal connection with the majority of the songs, which is mad considering the length of the thing and the fact previous BT albums have taken a little while to sink in.