Foto-© Genesis Baez
Das Label „Ausnahmekünstler:innen“ ist oft zu lesen, aber manchmal trifft es auch zu. Bei Big Thief sind sich schnell alle einig, dass in der Musik etwas Besonderes passiert. Zuletzt nachzuhören auf Double Infinity, dem inzwischen sechsten Album der New Yorker Band, das am letzten Freitag via 4AD erschienen ist. Worin liegt also das Besondere? Vielleicht darin, dass die Band den Songs alles andere unterordnet, wie sie im Interview im Juni in Berlin erzählen. Das eigene Ego, Grammy-Nominierungen, Jubelstürme in der Presse, kommerzielle Verheißungen – am Ende zählt der Song.
Im Gespräch wird deutlich, wie eingespielt die drei aufeinander sind, wie aufmerksam ihren Gegenübern. Adrianne Lenker erzählt, dass Einstellungen Übungssache sind, genau wie der Umgang mit Veränderungen. Nachdem Gründungsmitglied Max Oleartchik die Band im letzten Jahr verlassen hat, haben sie die Idee und den Titel zu Double Infinity behalten. Aber waren offen, sich neu auszurichten. Auch als Buck Meek in Frage gestellt hat, einsam in der Natur aufzunehmen, wie sonst. Und so wurde verhandelt, besprochen und schlussendlich eine dreiwöchige Session in New York angesetzt, aus der die Aufnahmen für das Album entstanden sind. Dabei waren erstmals befreundete und bewunderte Musiker:innen und die Absprache, offen und mit Vertrauen in den Prozess zu gehen. Im Interview erfahren wir mehr über die Entstehung von Double Infinity – dem Song und dem Album – warum Unendlichkeiten im Kleinen und im Großen zusammenkommen und dass Musik immer noch etwas Heiliges ist, dem auch die Funktionalitäten einer Musikindustrie nichts anhaben dürfen. Weil sie, so James Krivchenia, am Ende mehr gibt als sie nimmt.
We’re here to talk about your new record Double Infinity. What does the album mean to you? What feeling do you take away from making it?
Buck Meek: That would be happy for me. The most valuable thing was the experience of recording this album with this group of ten musicians. I’m happy there’s a record of it so that people can experience it, and that it will transmute to the rest of the world. For me, the value is in standing in a circle with these incredible musicians, improvising and responding to everything that we heard.
Adrianne Lenker: Yeah, I think that’s huge. I mean, we spent ten years as a four-piece and never made a collaborative record. Only one or two people played on a few tracks over time. But we went through this breakup with Max [Oleartchik] and we went through a lot of changes. We became a trio. We tried a bunch of stuff and ultimately got to the idea of breaking open and inviting all these friends and people we admire. Some of them we hadn’t met, whose music we love. We invited them to be part of the songs that we love so much. We spent a lot of time working on songs – they’ve always been the thing for us. They are our North Star, the thing we follow. The question of each record is always, how can we serve the songs and how can we make these songs come out to life? It felt like the songs were asking us to be open. One of the most meaningful things was seeing the three of us step into a room with seven or nine other people, take a risk, and trust them. We didn’t direct anyone. We let them do their own thing. We just jammed and completely let go of control. That felt really meaningful.
James Krivchenia: For me, it’s rare to get a glimpse of anything outside for albums that I’m a part of, or even my friends‘ albums. Every once in a while, though, you do hear a record you made as if you’re a fan of the band. You’re in a headspace where you’re just like, “Ah, I love this band.” Then you realize, “Wait, that’s me.” But usually, it’s what Buck said. When I listen to this record, I think of the feeling of playing in the room with those people. It brings back memories of the experience. It’s good to hold on to that feeling, because it makes you want to make the experience really fun. I’ve also been on records that weren’t fun. You listen to them and think, ‚Oh God, I remember how much that sucked.‘ You can’t enjoy the music.
Buck Meek: I would go so far as to say that the record is better because of it. If you have a bunch of fun and you’re not thinking about the final product as much, it’s probably going to be a better final product.
With how much material, and how much of a vision, did you go into this process? Everything happened in three weeks, that’s quite a short and intense time.
Adrianne Lenker: All the songs were written beforehand. Ever since Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You, I’ve been writing, and I’ve written a lot of songs. We also did a couple of weeks long sessions of writing together, which is something different on this album too. A lot of work went into just getting the songs. Double Infinity came to me just a few days before the session — I didn’t even know there was going to be a song Double Infinity. So that was a surprise. The recording took three weeks, and then we decided to mix it all together as well. The recording was to tape and Dom Monks, the producer, was mixing it as performances on the console, so we had to be there to make our notes. That took another two weeks. In between, James and I got together in New Mexico and worked on sounds and mixes. When I really look at it, from start to finish, this album actually took a couple of years to make because of all the writing. But the actual playing was like a burst.
Buck Meek: It was super intuitive. We didn’t show the musicians the songs at all before the session, so they responded improvisational.
The song Double Infinity speaks about the body being a bridge of the inner and outer worlds, that’s exactly what playing music does, too. Can you tell us a bit more of the concept behind the song and why the album is named Double Infinity as well?
Adrianne Lenker: Before we had the breakup with Max, we had the title and the concept for the record. Then things changed, but we kept the name. We did that with Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You, too. There’s something powerful about having a title and then putting all those songs inside that folder. When the song appeared, I thought about the concepts a lot. It wraps around everything on the whole record; it encompasses so much of it. It’s kind of a prompt, or an idea, to start getting your wheels turning. You named it when you said it’s about the inner and the outer infinities, and the body as a bridge. There are different dimensions of how double infinities could be perceived: the macro and the micro. Out into the cosmos and then down on a cellular level – zooming in and in and everything starts to look the same, there’s universes inside universes. There are galaxies within galaxies, both outwardly and inwardly, and on physical and spiritual levels. But also future and past levels, everything before you came into this body and everything after you leave this body. It speaks to the strangeness of being human, and always mourning and celebrating what is forming, what’s fading, what’s been lost, and what lies waiting. There’s a human propensity to lust, grieve, and to romanticize what’s been lost, as well as the difficulty of finding a still point – the eye behind the essence that remains unmoving and unchanging. Amidst all of this, there’s a stillness that simply witnesses. There’s always a longing and desire to connect with something greater than us, God or something that’s omnipotent and higher, and to surrender to forces that we can’t understand.
I imagine working together on such complex, highly personal, and consensual topics, where everyone has a different perspective, to be a fragile business. Did you establish any rules or rituals?
James Krivchenia: We had a lot of conversations about how we really needed to show trust. As musicians, the best leadership is when you can feel that the person who organized the session trusts and likes what you’re playing and is interested in it. We tried to come in with a spirit of “This is going to be awesome” rather than “Oh, yeah. Could you turn it down a little?” We wanted to listen to what was happening and trust that it would be great.
Adrianne Lenker: And let everybody find their way.
James Krivchenia: It felt very sturdy and easy because everyone there was a really good listener and they really cared. They cared about the songs, the music, and sounding good. No one wanted to overplay or underplay. Everyone just wanted to support the whole thing.
Adrianne Lenker: Yeah, it felt sturdy. I think that’s mainly because the three of us are in such a solid place. We had an understanding that we were just going to be good hosts, invite people into these songs, and be communicative. But we didn’t have to talk much. It’s kind of like hiring an expert to work on your car. You don’t stand over their shoulder asking, “What are you doing?” You trust that if you hire a mechanic, they’ll do their job. I felt that trust with everyone.
Buck Meek: The process to get to that point, though, was a long conversation between the three of us. That’s part of what makes a band. Everyone stands up for what they believe in, but is also willing to compromise and iterate until we find a middle ground on which we can all agree. In the long run, we’re very much like a unanimous system, but the process can be a long conversation. For example, when we let Max go, we originally tried recording this album as a trio in the forest, as we had recorded the first five albums. James and Adrianne wanted to record deep in the woods in the winter, in isolation. But I had a strong gut feeling that, with the transition of leaving Max, we needed to surround ourselves with our community and go to the city—somewhere we were just a small part of something much bigger, filled with empathy. I stated my case for the idea of going to New York City, surrounding ourselves with people we played with ten years ago as a band, as well as some new people, and shaking things up. Eventually, they agreed.
In previous interviews, you’ve said that music has always been an escape for you. After the success of your last record and your Grammy nominations, with everyone waiting for a new album, can music still be that for you? How do you also put it into a business perspective? Can you leave that aspect out when you’re writing?
Adrianne Lenker: I think you can leave it out. Music is so powerful for me, and for us, that it exists in an untouchable place. It’s almost like being in nature. Even if your job was working in nature, I don’t think you’d ever tire of nature itself. We can make choices. I think boredom is a choice. I also think buying into the ego is a choice. It’s practice and it’s hard to find your center within it all. But we have a solid foundation because we started in an organic way and built from the ground up. It’s always been about the music. Stuff like the Grammys, the critics, the praise, the public perception, and so on. It can be challenging for your mental health in the level of, “Whoa, all these people think have ideas about me. Am I believing those ideas about me? What is me?” That can be really hard. Luckily, though, the music is always there for us. To me, it’s as important as ever. Sometimes, it’s even more so because of those hard things. It’s a refuge. It’s so healing. It’s helped us get through everything. If I have a problem with the way the industry is or the hard things we have to do on the road, I’ll probably write a song about it to help me process it. It’s enchanted. You can’t touch it. My biggest regret from these five days of interviews is not bringing a guitar because all I want to do after these days is sit in my room and play guitar.
Buck Meek: It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that you have to compromise to create opportunity. But we’ve discovered that putting all your energy into the music you want to make, regardless of what anyone else says, gives you more power to create the world you want. You’re basically creating all the leverage.
James Krivchenia: If you put your heart into it, it gives back so much. I feel exhausted after a session. I feel exhausted after a tour. But that’s from the physical demands of travel, late nights, etc. I also feel completely re-energized, in a way that I wouldn’t if I were just hanging out on vacation. It gives a lot back as long as you feed it right and take care of yourself along the way.
Big Thief Tour:
13.04.26 Berlin, Columbiahalle
14.04.26 Köln, E-Werk
15.06.26 München, TonHalle
16.06.26 Hamburg, Grosse Freiheit 36
