Big Thief - Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You (February 11, 2022) Album • Page 38

I am dying at this picture they posted on social media the other day

 

She only was live for like 2 minutes and was just showing off her dog and what she was cooking for dinner

 

running this back for the first time in a few weeks after borderline wearing it out too fast. still a masterpiece lol

 

yeah I listened to it with my partner the other day and we read along to the lyrics throughout (my first time doing so, tho I pretty much had picked up on most of the lyrics already), and I just don’t know what else to say besides this is a masterclass in every area of songwriting. tbh tho we recently did a run through of all their albums and it’s honestly a pretty damn narrow margin between all of them for which is my favorite. I think it’s especially close between this and UFOF atm.

 

This album has helped me appreciate UFOF a hell of a lot more

It all finally resonated with me after I “liked not loved” it for so long

 

Such a great record!

I was not expecting this kind of effort from them!

 

I feel like every album by this band has made me appreciate the album(s) before it more

 

Khris P & Glenn Freestyled Over Big Thief's "Heavy Bend"

 

i have yet to sit down and listen to this all the way through in one go but as i spend more time with it in sections im starting to get over a few of the things that were stopping me from fully getting into this band in the past (an intimidating discography def being one of them, including solo efforts and side projects, which i have not gotten around to yet for any of them and i know adrienne's solo stuff is essential so thats on my list) im starting to really see whats so special about them and this album the more and more i listen. excited to go back and revisit UFOF/two hands and capacity which i liked decently enough but still never spent the time with any of them that they deserved, and i havent heard a second of masterpiece. ill be frank about whats been stopping me and yall can throw your tomatoes because ill probably deserve it, but i could never really get past adrienne's voice and her more abstract lyrics that i just simply couldnt make any sense of just put me off to them for the longest time. of course, none of this means i think she's a terrible singer or lyricist, just certainly not for me and actively put me off from liking the band (for the most part, a couple songs like "not" have always been a banger, but when i tried listening to more i couldnt really do it).

anyway i know this post is all "me me me look at me i like the thing everyone likes now even tho i HATED it before please validate me and let me be one of yall now" but....please let me be one of yall now. lmao im just playing around. if anyone's curious, "heavy bend" was the big "aha" moment, i had to do a double take and then play the song back 5 times, such a mesmerizing beat like those drums are kinda hard but its got this lullaby type quality to it, and im not even sure if thats a lil flute action or a synth or something going on under that plucked instrument but its over before i can even comprehend all the sounds im hearing on this one little quiet interlude type song.

but there's way more than just that here doing it for me to be clear. like i said i dont listen to this thing as a whole, i do it in little parts, sometimes the first few tracks, or several different starting points in the middle, or toward the end and ride it out, but more often than not i find myself drifting over to "red moon" to get things started, definitely a nice rustic rootsy type song i could've seen fleet foxes fucking with during the helplessness blues era. sorry im not very in tune to much folk and roots music beyond the obvious indie touchstones from last decade, so my points of comparison are going to be decidedly modern when i know they're likely influenced by more historic and perhaps more obscure artists and bands (or not, idk, im just assuming theyre not going around name dropping fleet foxes as an influence lol). but yeah from there into "dried roses" followed by "no reason," which makes way into wake me up to drive, and so on and so forth its sort of a miracle i havent been able to listen to it all in one sitting yet because the sequencing is pretty much perfect, i just havent had the time but i also admittedly sort of like taking it in in different chunks and having to treat it like the monumental, gargantuan artistic statement that it is and finding my own way to consume that works for me. its an interesting way to think about my relationship with the art itself and how im consuming it.

dont be mistaking me though, there's so many fantastic moments up toward the front of the album you may have forgotten about because ive just been focusing on the mid to late section, because thats what made me realize i was really starting to dig this band in a way i hadnt before, because yeah i tried out spud infinity months ago and just didnt get it. but, how could i? that song is weird as fuck and if you arent already converted to the church of big thief its a pretty "uhh.... wtf it this?" type song, and the "whats it gonna tAYEEEEEK" is a perfect example of what i find hard to take when it comes to adrienn's vocals. BUT! the more i spent with other parts of the album and familiarized myself with their vibe, the more "spud infinity" starts to make total sense and reveal itself as a certified banger. i mean that fiddle. and the boingy noise forgot the name of the instrument. i would have loved to be a fly on the wall during these recording sessions because i dont know how a group of humans were able to come up with some of this shit as a whole. yeah one person with some whacky ideas throwing anything and everything at the wall to see what sticks, that would make sense, but this is a whole ass band with im assuming a producer and they're playing with shit so unorthodox and off the wall it would make experimental solo artists like tim hecker and oneohtrix point never flinch.

i think i need to just sit down with this record, listen from beginning to end with lyrics in front of me, and then i'll be able to know how i truly feel about this album and band, but to say i think im coming around is an understatement. because ill be frank again if you promise not to throw me out of the thread, but when this dropped i just did not get the near universal praise and landed on the complete opposite side of the fence with my initial impressions, which yeah i didnt even get past like 5 tracks, after hearing "spud infinity" i was done and confused as hell. but then like i said, i started checking out stuff near the middle and back of the record and just spending time with different 4-5 song runs on it and began to realize i dig the fuck out of so much of this.

now of course the big exciting outcome of all this is that i have an entire back discography to also pull apart and watch (or rather hear) as those layers unfold and hit my ears in new ways now that im listening smarter and have a genuine interest in the music. point is, for a while, i just couldnt see why this band was THE band, i felt like i was missing something and just couldn't find anything to grasp onto within the music to maybe help it grow on me. but turns out i didnt have to find anything, i wasnt missing anything, i was just trying too hard when all this music really needs is to just be heard with open ears and without prejudice. thats it. sorry for the long ramble lol just wanted to share my journey on how this band finally started to make sense to me.

 

They’ll be on Fallon tomorrow (Thursday)

 

Welcome

 

I find this to be kind of how it is for a few folks I have spoken with, and kind of me too. I got into them starting with Capacity bc I peeped Mythological Beauty and it basically knocked the wind out of me. but I don’t think I really fully appreciated what the band truly was at that point, in fact, I don’t think I could have! each new album seems to expose a slightly new layer and inform their prior work for me— to the point where I’ve realized now there are basically entire worlds built inside every single record, and the individual tracks have now begun to stand out to me as more than just “songs”, and more movements in a grander scheme almost. kind of like vignettes. this is most strongly showcased for me in Dragon and UFOF I’d say, but it’s true of it all imo.

I do think the biggest thing that kept me at bay from rating them as highly as others did for a long time was actually Adrianne’s voice as well. I didn’t outright hate it but on some tracks I felt it could be overbearing, and her inflections and general styling can feel fluttery in a way that I straight up just felt was uncool for a while lol idk. I don’t know when or how exactly this shifted because now I love it unconditionally pretty much, but I really do think it was something I had to almost build up a tolerance to haha. which is wild bc now to me I listen to her and she’s objectively great and I wouldn’t want anyone else vocalizing over their music. I think I was also trying to listen to their music too passively, which is sadly kind of the case for a lot of music I have engaged with over the years. the more I try to hone in on what each individual member is doing in a particular part, the more I feel I can visualize myself in the center, and kinda feel the music ebbing and flowing around me.

throughout the (almost) 2 years I have been with my partner, I have tried to get them into Big Thief on a few occasions and it’s always been kinda the same deal— “they’re a really good band and super talented but there’s just something about her voice that bothers me”— but after a few weeks of playing loose songs from this album around them, they very obviously started to come around and eventually asked if we could run through their albums together in chronological order. so over the course of a week or so that’s what we did, lyrics in tow, and by the end of Capacity (we did Masterpiece and Capacity back-to-back in one day) they said “all right, I officially can say I love them”. what’s funny is now we’re trying to get their dad into them bc he’s a huge music guy. he worked in the industry for years (he worked for Warner Bros. I believe and has worked closely with several artists I love deeply, Deftones being like the biggest example for me), and we’re always trying to get him into newer artists by sending him songs and stuff, but he’s consistently been like “I can’t get past her voice” with this band. and I am just hoping there is a glass-shattering moment with him too, it almost feels like a rite of passage in a way for this band for some of us lol idk. it’s weird and funny to me tho, now that I am 100% in the fold, that I want to convert ppl to the church of Big Thief. I just want to share the intense, beautiful feelings this band makes me feel with others honestly.

 

I'm gonna be honest and say that I only skimmed both those long posts as of now BUT they really confirm the thing for me that great songwriting trumps all. As long as the music isn't completely sonically unpalatable for you, if you keep giving great songwriters a chance they'll break through your mental barriers eventually

 

Slowly getting into a band is my second favorite way to get into them, following seeing them live and having it click. Your experience with Big Thief sounds like mine with the National. A band i couldn’t get the buzz about until i was listening to it almost like a mantra and then, BANG, it makes contact.

 

Anthony Ronald McDonald is interviewing Adrianne tomorrow at noon eastern

twitch.tv/theneedledrop

 

Never gets old lol

 

god damn their back catalog finally makes sense to me, I don’t know if I ever actually listened to all of capacity but fuck it’s so good

 

Capacity rules. I’m glad I only really caught onto them with that record because Masterpiece has never really done it for me

 

I’m gonna spin that one tonight as I’ve never heard any of it

 

You’re gonna have a blast

 

The more they put out the more I like them.

 

Still think Capacity is their best record. Would like this one on vinyl though.

 

I have a few tunes of off that one. I need to revisit the whole LP.

 

https://www.newburycomics.com/colle...-capacity_exclusive_lp?variant=41373181673652