Sonic experiences with Big Thief. Big Thief is an indie folk band currently releasing and performing across the world.
Five years ago I lived in a farmhouse hostel on the Beara peninsula in Ireland. In this time I was bright and holy and bowing to the world. Once I met a girl from North America, and we were two similiar souls bonding over music. Sitting on the sofa in orange firelight we swapped earphones, listening together, seperately. She shared with me her favourite band Big Thief. I never listened to bands before, I only listened to electronic music. After a week she left due to issues with her visa, but left her imprint on my journey with music. In the mornings I would sit on the edge of cliffs, watching sunrise and listening to Big Thief, tears of joy.
Certain environments allow me to be present: feeling openly in a safe and beautiful space. Feeling expanded and curious about the surrounding creation. Safety and quietness form a soul hyperconductive to the emotions of music.
In London Big Thief became a voice to resonate my internal feelings of loss and sadness. Adrianne Lenker, the lyricist, depicts a tender ecological heart. She calls for responsibility and connection: “The blood of the man who is killing our mother with his hands is in me, is in my veigns.” … “The wound has no direction, everybody needs someone and deserves protection.” The resonance of lyrics through sound is a way to understand ourselves in a world that carries multiple ways of being. Music is often a person’s anchor point to ones identity and mood. Some people listen to folk and trap in the same day. There is hyperfolk music! Music taste has a multiplicity, but it’s borders show a unique personhood.
I saw Big Thief live in the O2 Shepard’s Bush this week. We all piled into the theatre with no script or communicative structures apart from beer. The crowd was warm and innocent, naive. For a moment I felt ashamed of my passion for folk music because the bearded men in plaid looked less cool than the hardcore techno queers and yet the energy in the room was soft, relaxed. The air said RESOLVED. I thought it is nice to have a resolution and go to bed at midnight. The air also carried remnants of the pandemic that wrapped little bubbles around people.
Big Thief came and performed. Adrianne Lenker is a lucid artist and the room was in awe of her, holding their breaths. As a band that makes gentle and restrained acoustic music their live performance as more rocky and this felt jarring for me. As they gained popularity over the years their work became more accessible and I believed that the expectations of the audiences to be pleased was influencing their music output. Adrianne Lenker has a vision to make a better world, so she clearly sees value in making her work accessible to more people. This highlights a question I think about, about the preciousness or purity of art uncompromised. I felt I could still enjoy the work and accept the room around me and the organic mutation of the band as they entered a global music industry. Resisting these developments would be draining and unproductive.
Where we put the line of compromise in our work is a personal choice. I think we can hold back on criticizing an artist for selling out as we cannot imagine the pressure that begin to enclose them as they build a career within a toxic industry. Who makes the industry toxic? The air of resolution I felt in the room contrasts to the current collapse of civilisation. As white western people do we congratulate our interest in folk as a good quality? Did we participate in saving the planet? It is clear there are crushing limitations, on Adrianne, and us as audience/consumers. The sonic experience was pleasurable.