Big Thief - Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You

Yep, that's the one. It alternates between short instrumental/environmental tracks and proper songs.

(Lot of Elliott Smith in its DNA too.)

as long as we're talking Florist, their previous two albums - If Blue Could Be Happiness and Emily Alone - are among my favorites of the past several years. same vibes as the new one, but largely without the instrumental interludes.

i don't know what it is about Emily Sprague's writing style that connects with me so deeply, but boy does it. i pay more attention to their lyrics than most.

Thanks alpine static - need to go back through her whole catalog. Surprised they/she don't have a thread.

thread of Florist

here you go

Change is really a perfect song, great recording too

just saw them and what an incredible band and show, only problem was they didn't play an hour longer

adrianne was in a somewhat weird mood and ended "red moon" with an extended jam that turned into an improvised song about thanking the opening act, watching your favourite film in a theatre with popcorn, chocolate, tea and flapjacks, and then ended with a lot of bird noise imitations

"not" was jammed out for 9 minutes, full band "not a lot just forever" was gorgeous, they played two new songs - "free treasure" and "vampire empire". "vampire empire" they started over halfway through so adrianne could play it solo at the very front of the stage without the p.a.

"flower of blood" was just massive live and "spud infinity" was played quite fast

oh i wish i'd recorded "free treasure" because it doesn't seem like it's on youtube.

it was a finger-picked one, vaguely similar vein to "from", "terminal paradise" etc., i don't think buck played on it at all and just did backing vocals. first line was "do you wanna go to the river" and chorus included "love without measure, free treasure"

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

another new one live

overrated group with top pr agents i guess

xp Sounds great! I love how the crowd suddenly starts going nuts in the final stretch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwhb6eVuRD4

here's a recording of "free treasure" at last

Very nice song. Buck somehow looks younger than ever (as for Max – not sure the color or cut of that garment is particularly flattering on him, but that's his call).

i hope that second album of material from the dnwmibiy sessions does eventuate this year

I was just thinking that – I hope they haven't "moved on"...

Really like that song. Man they're such a good bunch of weirdos.

I've decided this is my least favourite of their albums :( it feels like it's an album of moods rather than songs - ok every track is a song but fully half of them have no chorus, or just a thin sliver of one. Also there's less of a focus on narrative lyrics. And y'know moods are fine, some of my best friends are moods, i just prefer their more traditionally structured stuff, songs with a bit more variety.

Much as I like Adrienne's autobiographical songs, even the deepest wells run shallow after a while. I also find that too much of this sort of thing stops me being able to relate to it after a while. I always liked, on previous albums, when she would go into wider, more fanciful topics like on the title track of UFOF; and that's what's great about songs like Spud Infinity or Sparrow - they might not be "based on a true story" but they are about "things" - philosophy, folk-fantasy - and not just a rhyming word salad, so in many ways this is arguably a more diverse and stronger set of songs on the whole.

I'll agree that about 30% of the material is very much incoherent "moods" though

how do we know they're autobiographical?

some of my best friends are moods

I will steal this line.

:)

STEREOGUM: I know “Mythological Beauty” was inspired by a story from when you were a kid. Are the rest of the songs [on "Capacity] biographical?

LENKER: None of the songs are fictional. I haven’t really figured out how to write a fictional piece yet. Not that fiction doesn’t contain truth, but if there are any fictional elements that surface in the songs, they can still be true. There’s symbolism and metaphor on Capacity meant to describe very real [feelings and events]. It’s maybe a more tangible way of saying what I want to say than it would be to say it literally.

https://www.stereogum.com/1942568/qa-big-thiefs-adrianne-lenker-on-inha

true =/= autobiographical of course.

ugh I hate those questions

Which songs on here do you consider to be word salad?

None of them really, I wouldn't say

Oh sorry, I misunderstood then

Yeah sorry, I meant there don't seem to be any songs that are just 'cool sounding phrases strung together' as far as I can tell. The previous albums featured songs that, if they weren't autobiographical, seemed to tell stories about people and experiences that could well have been about Lenker's lived corporeal world, whereas the scope seems wider on 'Dragon'

i just prefer their more traditionally structured stuff, songs with a bit more variety.

― ledge, Thursday, February 16, 2023 4:18 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Stewing over this post. Aren't these sentiments at odds?

I warmed to Dragon... because it had more sonic variety.

yeah it does have a lot of variety between songs, it's the in-song variety i think is lacking - verse verse verse verse verse just grates a bit for me. in this instance.

and some of the verses are scarcely two lines long - sparrow is the one that really kills me, doesn't help that it's followed by little things, which I might quite like in isolation but in the middle of the album it's just more evidence for the prosecution.

"sparrow" is pretty easily one of the weakest tracks because it just plods along with that verse over and over but nothing else is really like that

sparrow is still the only one i skip over - i often start with "little things", just because i love that 4 song stretch it kicks off which is unlike the rest of the album, and because i've listened to that first handful of tracks a million times

unbelievable

i am very sure that someday i'll come back and sparrow will be my favorite :)

it would appear that the title of world's undisputed #1 fan of Spud Infinity might potentially be in dispute

unfortunately, earlier last summer i was forced to sell the title on ebay to make rent :(

what's it gonna taaake?

*tears of regret*

I love Sparrow. Little Things does nothing for me

Co-sign. Was listening in the car the other day, absolutely crumbling to sparrow, then just taken totally out of it by little things. Half this album I find incredible, the other half is by no means bad, but just not for me.

Give me sparrow, no reason, changes, certainty, spud infinite, time escaping forever. Probably just need to invest more time into the other tracks, but they definitely don’t hit at immediately as those listed

Sparrow is totally devastating, hits the same place as “not” does for me. Its lyrical subject matter is our limitedness, and the melody reflects. It’s a song where all the parts are working with each other. It feels very carefully and intentionally constructed for the effect it makes

I don't really get Certainty. Surprised it's so popular. Feels like a less catchy version of some of the other stuff on the album. But to each their own

I always forget which song it is when I see the title.

There should be a name for that feeling for how music changes when someone else enters your listening space or when you're sharing a listening space. I feel this most profoundly with jazz for some reason, how I suddenly become more aware of any discordance.

Anyway, Sparrow is the one song I think I've turned off more than any other. I've even come in from another room just to turn it off.

Idle posts that reveal way more of oneself than first realised #14.

The Chinaski Effect

lol