Big Thief - Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You

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.

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?

― Indexed, Thursday, February 17, 2022 6:13 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I am having a similar experience - I wasn't sure if I had ever listened to them before but listened to Capacity and I was like, oh yeah, I remember checking this out. I think my initial reaction was that it sounded like good songwriting but there just wasn't enough that made it stand out for me to invest the time in developing a personal connection and appreciation. But now having fallen in love at first sight with Dragon New Warm etc and then going back, all the value hiding in a more conventional indie folk album is just that much closer to the surface, much more tantalizingly within reach and worth the effort.

Anyway, the reason I mention this is vis-a-vis the convo upthread (I think it is in this thread!) regarding the relative pros and cons of having the context for hearing new music vs. going in blind. In this case it is a whole new perspective on the artist that has allowed me to hear their music in a different way, much for the better.

yeah, i said some really wrong stuff, from-the-hip, on context and stuff like that upthread. i was thinking about how wrong i was about that this morning actually! for all the reasons people said. sometimes you shoot from the hip and kill the bandit, sometimes you shoot your toe off and pretend it didn't hurt

apparently Certainty was recorded during a power outage at the studio. that is an excellent tidbit

iirc all great artists shoot off some extremity or other, nbd

I'm just reading the lyrics to Certainty now. for a while I was convinced that there were all sorts of variations in the chorus, so that rather than always being "My certainty is wild, weaving", it was sometimes "uncertainty", and "why" instead of "wild", sometimes "leaving" instead of "weaving". but I guess not. fukken NexusRasp is gonna be all over my ass for that, probably, if they find out

While we're still in the lovefest here, I want to give some props to Lenker's phrasing

Death, like a door
To a place we've never been before

OK, it's a good line, but one that teeters on the edge of cliche to me. However, she dances around both the most obvious rhythm and melody jut enough to bring out the poignancy and beauty. So nice.

But now having fallen in love at first sight with Dragon New Warm etc and then going back, all the value hiding in a more conventional indie folk album is just that much closer to the surface

Wait - Capacity is a “more conventional indie folk album”?

if i left out the word "folk" would that make more sense? i debated including it. maybe conventional/unconventional is the wrong rubric, more singular and remarkable vs. familiar and unremarkable?

and for the Capacity lovers among you, my comment is just that on the surface it is more familiar and unremarkable. Now that I have been primed for the quality of the band I am giving it a deeper listen and hearing what it has to offer beyond that. that is basically my point

this is pretty crazy to watch, busking as unknowns. would be really stirring to happen upon this

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

^capo sighting in the wild

part of me thinks i would remove my headphones and stop to watch for a second, but the other part of me is worried that i might've actually walked by them without a glance in the past lol

i didn't start spending much time in the area until after this video happened, so maybe i'm in the clear

I wouldn’t feel bad about that. I could see listening for a second and thinking this is twee as fuck, nooope, putting the headphones back on

I knew almost nothing of Big Thief until this album and naively assumed/hoped that was Lenker's grandmother on violin

Lads

Is it possible to have a crush on an album? Not being funny or anything

dog latin and Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You sitting in a tree...

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.

Yes, to me it’s a nice “palate cleanser” – falling, as it does, between two atmospheric epics – and I like the insistent lyrical repetition and “just a sketch” feel of the song.

I feel like when you hit “Red Moon” is when your brain goes – “oh shit, this is just a remarkable album” (…and it’s the start of side 3, which shows how well-paced the track list is)