by Alivia Stonier (@liv.jolee)
Double Infinity, last year’s Big Thief record, was a project of transformation, not only in its subject matter across the songs as Adrianne Lenker explores the process of aging, but also in the sonic language that was forming underneath. Compared to their earlier work, you can hear a deep contrast in the emotions captured by the band. After a decade of releases, it feels like catching up with an old friend.
Opening with the track “Incomprehensible,” it's the observations of a musician turning 33 years old and what that means, especially in the context of being raised as a woman, where aging is seen as a punishment or a crime. Lenker beautifully captures how this process can be felt on an ancestral level, despite the beauty that also becomes passed down with it. The project becomes a discovery that, as life goes on and your own mortality becomes less abstract, you should celebrate the joy of life rather than retreat inwards on yourself.
It felt as though the Barbie movie walked so this album could run, which is highlighted by an older perspective. It feels like a good omen to remind us that it doesn't have to be scary to lose the youth that we so romanticize in our culture, and instead, you are still left with something important to say, and some may argue, even something more refined. Perhaps you can chalk it up to angst that still exists within them, but this album simply doesn’t anchor the listener down in the ways that their previous records have, although the opening track and “Los Angeles” shine like diamonds.
The project came as the first following the departure of band member Max Oleartchik, after the bassist left the group in 2024. It was also the first Big Thief record made as a core trio, with Lenker, Buck Meek, and James Krivchenia having to reconsider the way they approached making music together without Oleartchik's presence. In doing so, many collaborators were brought onto the project, including a circle of artists that joined the band for three weeks of live sessions at New York City's Power Station. Among them were ambient and new age musician Laraaji, jazz bassist Joshua Crumbly, percussionist Mikel Patrick Avery, and singers Hannah Cohen, June McDoom, and Alena Spanger. The group would play for hours at a time, improvising arrangements collectively rather than approaching each song as a fixed structure.
This experimentation allowed for an album that is more free-flowing than its predecessors, having a light and airy feel that ends with true celebration on tracks like “Happy with You.” There is a deliberate sense of trance and drone running underneath much of the record, something Lenker has described as a through line connecting the songs. Rather than simply replacing the bassist and continuing on as usual, the band used the absence of their former fourth member as an opportunity to open the doors of the music even further. Toward the end of the record, the band relied more on its established musical language than that of its lyrics, leaving a craving for the depth of the earlier tracks that welcome you into the pool.
A record of radical acceptance, which could have been a somber take on growing old and losing a collaborator, instead became a way of looking at the positives. But in doing so, the record lost some of its sonic edge despite containing a beautiful message. The project truly feels like a way to finding their footing once more, now as a trio, leaving a mysterious sense of what the band is going to lean toward next after having gone so far into the experimental route. Overall, the album does a remarkable job of telling a cohesive story, and one that can be especially important for women to hold on to as they age. It's the sound of love, light, and vulnerability that, despite more simplicity on the lyrical level, hangs itself out to be discovered. Big Thief are not concerned with judgement, deciding it is worth it for those that will uncover the same magic that they have through Double Infinity.