Review: Big Thief’s Double Infinity
Big Thief
Double Infinity
4AD
Double Infinity, where things come in twos, sits between past and future, what’s been lost and what lies waiting, trees on fire, flooded rivers and three and three.
Big Thief, self-described as a “stretchy entity that is always becoming,” released their sixth studio album on Friday, September 5, via 4AD. The nine-track cosmic trip sees Adrianne Lenker, Buck Meek and James Krivchenia lean into their new dynamic as a trio after Max Oleartchik left the group mid-last year.
Following the band’s 20-track record, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You, released in 2022, the latest album might seem like a step back, but with their avant-garde sound expansion and close attention to detail, Double Infinity is no humble release.
Recording over three weeks in January, Big Thief invited a multitude of artists to improvise over a number of demos Lenker brought to the Power Station in New York, NY. The nine tracks that made it onto the record were selected thoughtfully, leaving a number of ideas on the table.
Incomprehensible opens the album, introducing the kaleidoscopic sound environment that the album resides in. After a missed flight and a trip through Ontario, Lenker delivers a reflection on the passage of time… a theme that carries onwards through the album.
The folk-rock track Words tackles language, and when words fail, there are distorted guitar solos. Los Angeles continues to explore dreaming and the subconscious, with sentiments on an intense love that travels beyond friendship and romantic connections.
All over the album, Lenker delivers lyrics that stay true to the songwriting she is famous for. Dream language, concrete imagery and heavy repetition carry forward feelings connected with the human condition, particularly seen on the album’s title track.
All Night All Day slows the record with Lenker’s melting vocal, though it holds onto a drum pattern that is kept up-tempo. Despite the otherworldly sound on this album, Big Thief put thought into balance, which is showcased on this love song.
The centrepiece of the album, Grandmother, was written collectively by the trio as an ode to rock and roll. Lenker wrote on her Instagram that “this one shows me that rock and roll goes way outside any genre and is really a spirit.” Having performed the track live a number of times last year, the trio brought new age artist Laraaji onto the recording. The multi-instrumentalist contributed vocalisations and droning synth and zither lines, which can also be heard on a few other songs.
The penultimate track, Happy with You, and the seven-minute No Fear deliver gripping drum and bass patterns. No Fear feels like a cosmic day-dream and drags the sparkling motif that floats through the album into the foreground. Happy with You sounds like a room full of artists improvising with and over one another, and although the vocals only consist of three lines repeated over and over, the lyrics feel like a concise summary of the idea that real love doesn’t always need to be over-analysed.
Closing out the album is the indie-folk How Could I Have Known, which carries listeners out of the album’s expansive soundscape and into reality with a double on mortality that tells us to exist moment to moment.
Double Infinity is a repeatable hallucination of a record that is sure to change how most listeners perceive Big Thief.
PRUDENCE ACKRILL