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Arts
Wednesday, October 30, 2019 — 5A
I’d never really seen a woman roar until I saw Big Thief in concert.
It happened when the band performed “Not,” the fifth song of their
set at Detroit’s Majestic Theatre on Thursday, Oct. 17. “Not” was the
first single from their second release of 2019, Two Hands, which came
out less than a week before the show.
At that point in the set, the members of Big Thief were still in the
jackets they were wearing when they arrived on stage. There had
been a genuine autumn coldness outside, and it was not much warmer
inside the venue. With the hood of her gray, oversized sweatshirt
pulled up, you could see Big Thief frontwoman Adrianne Lenker’s
face just peeking through. She joked about it later, exclaiming in her
gentle voice that she didn’t realize how full the audience was until she
removed the hood. But in the moment, this glimpse of her face was
like a vanishing point, all our horizons of thought and attention drawn
toward it.
“Not” is structured as endlessly mounting anaphora of what it,
unsurprisingly, is not (never, in fact, revealing what it is). By the time
of the final chorus, the pent-up energy of the song is bursting at the
seams. At that point completely mesmerized, I watched Lenker’s face
as she wailed, “NOT DYING.” Screamed it. Made it thunder through
everything that theater had to offer. Unsteadied our feet.
Her voice tore through something that night — whether it was
internal or external, physical or metaphysical, I still can’t tell you.
What I can tell you is that this moment and a collection of soul-stirring
moments from the show will probably never leave my mind. In the
mere weeks that have passed, it has inspired three odes: to Big Thief,
of course, to Adrianne Lenker and also to the people with whom I
shared this experience.
The First Ode: To the band
Big Thief swiftly took to the stage after a half-hour opening set
from Boston-based, Ellen Kempner-fronted alt-rock outfit Palehound.
The latter proved a surprisingly fitting complement to the main act,
with their musical agility (their setlist completing full circuits from
mystical lullabies to lively rock ‘n’ roll) alongside pensive, humane
lyrics, when before I wasn’t sure if any band could open well for Big
Thief.
Lenker, alongside Buck Meek on guitar, Max Oleartchik on bass
and James Krivchenia on the drums, armed themselves with their
instruments and without further ado, launched right into “Terminal
Paradise,” followed by “Toy,” each drawn from their 2019 releases.
Two slower, cosmic lead-ins for a band that has a way of creeping up
on you — in other words, they could have lured us in no better way.
The more upbeat Two Hands track “Forgotten Eyes” came third, for a
well-timed change of pace and tone.
Not everyone was bobbing their heads to “Eyes,” but my friend and
I were, unabashedly. Both of our signature moves also materialized
at this time: He does something with his hands, like he’s pointing
and tracing the trajectories of notes as they travel through his limbs,
while I twirl my wrist like I’m conducting an invisible orchestra.
Our responses to Big Thief were not entirely voluntary, my knees not
always needing conscious effort to keep bending, his gestures also
seeming unchoreographed. We were responding to musical reflex,
instinct.
“Detroit’s got energy,” Meek said at some point, in the twang to
match his cowboyish shirt with the two topmost buttons unbuttoned.
In the packed venue, my friend and I both hoped that was directed at
us.
Over the course of the roughly hour-
long set, they went on to grace us with
nascent classics, like “Shark Smile,”
“Masterpiece”
and,
in
closing,
an
electric-guitar rendition of “Mary.”
But they also surprised us with more
new music — as in, songs that exceeded
U.F.O.F.’s and even Two Hands’ tracklists,
three songs Lenker introduced as “brand
new,” but not without the disclaimer,
“New or old, what difference does it
make?”
One was quiet and meditative, and
sounded like it could have fit well on
Lenker and Meek’s side collaboration
a-sides. The other two were acoustic,
and the second in particular gestured
toward new developments in Lenker’s
rich songwriting. It capitalized on wit in a
way that I’d never heard before, and blended in social and existential
commentary with echoes of Bob Dylan and the American folk tradition
it’s easy to forget Big Thief, for all their wonderfully distinct qualities,
is a part of.
Performing songs new or old, talking or playing, Big Thief always
looked like they were doing what they love with people they love. In
the way they marched on stage in matching cold-weather gear. In the
way they would face each other in the instrumental interludes. In
the way they look at one another in photographs as well as on stage,
like friends, too interconnected to be described as new or old — what
difference does it make?
The Second Ode: To the frontwoman
Adrianne Lenker writes songs in the form of what you might call
constellations. The intimate scenes and objects she conjures in her
lyrics are usually loosely linked but, when taken as a whole, emerge in
breathtakingly ethereal arrangements. This approach to songwriting
lends itself to impressive representations of ineffable things like
memories, and the people we know and love, at the same time that it
never feigns to capture them entirely — being the galaxies’ worth of
components they are unto themselves.
“Mary,” off Big Thief’s second LP Capacity, is the prime illustration
of this. The verses dart from intimate image to intimate image, placing
you in the center of a solar system of objects enchanted with the titular
character’s memory. “Mom and dad and violins / Somber country
silence / The needle stopped the kicking / The clothespins on the
floor,” Lenker sings in the second of these verses; the chorus, over a
minute long, is even more spellbinding, flipping relentlessly through
the scrapbook of enchanted still lifes of her time with the real-life
friend Mary. (Some of these objects you can almost hear creaking and
tapping in the studio version, and make tangible appearances in other
performances, like this one with 89.3 The Current.) When Lenker
launched into this chorus for the final song of the set at the Majestic,
it was the third time in that show that I watched, frozen, as everyone
around me likewise stood still in awe.
Adrianne Lenker also writes about being in love in ways that are
refreshing to encounter. She writes about “real love,” the examples
our parents set that make us think it should “make our lungs black,”
the bliss we find when we name it for ourselves. She titles songs after
male and female lovers alike, and characterizes her relationships with
refreshing earnesty, in the mess that love and imbalances of power
make of them all.
When Adrianne Lenker sings about her mother, specifically, she can
hush and still an entire room, like a mother’s lullaby, in fact, but more
convincing in content than just form. And she did that night, when the
band played “Real Love”: “Looking up to her / Watching her do her /
makeup and hair.” My voice caught when I sang that lyric back to her;
somehow, I didn’t see it coming.
And even before Lenker removed her hoodie midway through
their set at the Majestic, I could tell her hair was short again. Maybe I
should’ve seen that coming; Two Hands closes with the slow-burning
“Cut My Hair.” It reminded me of how I used to feel when I would
see Taylor Swift’s wild curls on album covers, would hear her lament
about loving foolishly, and then took a little bit more pride in my wild
curls and foolish heart — except it was a more complicated and mature
experience this time. Short hair comes with a lot of baggage for me.
My mother is a breast cancer survivor, and when she lost her hair
to chemotherapy, what she got in return were damaging comments
about her appearance from the people who were supposed to love her
unconditionally. I will always flinch when I anticipate the same disease,
when I picture myself losing my hair one day, and can only see loss in
that image — I can’t see strength in it. Not yet. I know Lenker does
not shave her hair because of breast cancer. But I can’t help thinking,
when I stare up at her, that if I do inherit the disease and lose my hair
to chemo maybe that’s not the same as losing my identity, or femininity.
And I realized as these thoughts raced through my head and this
empowerment pulsed through me that it’s this: Big Thief is a band you
can believe in. Adrianne Lenker is a person I don’t know, but can also
believe in. I haven’t really believed in any musical artists since feeling
personally betrayed by Taylor Swift’s 1989 in high school, but I closed
my eyes in 2019 and listened to the woman on the stage in front of me,
singing about imperfect families and real love being “a heart attack,”
and I believed in her.
The Third Ode: To those with whom I share this band, this
experience
I did not know what kind of crowd to expect the night of the concert,
and found myself pleasantly surprised. I ran into a short story writer
I knew. She asked me what Big Thief song I would choose, given all
others would disappear, and seemed content with my knee-jerk
answer, Capacity’s “Watering.” I saw one of my teachers, who gave me
a hug with a beer in their hand and inquired how I found out about
Big Thief, before benevolently shooing me with a promise to see me in
class on Tuesday. I saw a boy I had a crush on in a creative writing class
freshman year, who introduced me to his partner and shared his plans
to get a music degree at another college.
I was happy to see a number of friends and acquaintances who
identify as queer, looking happy and safe. I was happy to see a lot of
nose rings — to see young people who looked like they were dressing
the way they wanted to dress. I felt like I could have been in the living
room of a co-op on my college campus, just with expanded dimensions
and technical upgrades to rise to the occasion of Big Thief’s largeness,
their majesty.
The people with whom I shared that space got me thinking about
how it astonishes me: how much our love for other people becomes
entangled with art. My unrestrained love for my mother. My forever-
tested love for my father. My fierce but well-meaning love for my
brother. My inarticulate love for my friend who I know is responsible
for changing my life, who I love and look up to in a kid-sister kind of
way. I endow a variety of artists with these loves, but Big Thief is the
only band with the strength and capacity to hold them all.
Actually, I went to the concert with one of these friends. The day
before the concert, both of us independently googled the setlists for
their tour thus far, then immediately closed the tab after doing so.
Another friend let us borrow his car to get there — magnanimity that
day knew no bounds — and we tested ourselves on Big Thief lyrics the
entire way there. We made our predictions, but decided the band could
not possibly go wrong. At the concert, after almost every song, we’d
turn to each other, usually exchanging a nod or a grin or words we
couldn’t hear, but still understood. That was the greatest part: sharing
it, without having to say anything.
On the way there, we talked about Big Thief lyrics and potential
setlists, yes, but we talked about life things, too. Naturally, then, my
romantic (anti-)developments of the last year came up. At one point in
that conversation, we revisited one of the theories that arose from one
of these failed pursuits, that relationships founded solely on the basis
of shared musical interest always seem shakier.
“Like us with Big Thief,” he quickly interrupted. I laughed hard,
and if I were someone who jokingly punched people’s arms, I would’ve
done so, but I thought about it more, and, to a certain extent, he was
right.
I can meditate all I want on what this experience means to me, but
the fact that I share its memory with someone I love is the whole thing,
the biggest thing. The most it could possibly mean.
***
“Not to die, not dying,” she sang, and I didn’t think any of us were,
but maybe Lenker felt like she had been before that moment, and
maybe I have at times, too, and maybe we always are, but maybe I also
believe she conquered that reality in that moment, with her voice and
her music alone, and she carried me away with her. I wish you could
have seen it and believed it. She would carry you, too.
Three odes to real love at last week’s Big Thief concert
JULIANNA MORANO
Daily Arts Writer
CONCERT REVIEW
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Sometimes it’s hard to believe that Rex Orange County is only
21 years old — he’s been singing so maturely on the strength of his
love since he was barely 18. In the three short years since the stellar
bcos u will never b free, Rex has become indie pop’s darling, stealing
listeners’ hearts with his impassioned (and catchy) songwriting. A
lot has happened in those three years. 18 is a crazy age to rocket into
stardom, and once you’ve become a star, there’s no going back. Rex
hasn’t shied away from singing about that pressure. But as the saying
goes, pressure makes diamonds — and Pony is a diamond.
There’s one solemn theme that drives the writing on Pony: Rex
missing his old life. It’s a message that runs deep throughout the
album, maybe even deeper than his usual warm expressions of love for
his girlfriend. Opener “10/10” and closer “It’s Not The Same Anymore”
are the biggest meditations on this theme, and it’s probably no
coincidence that he chose the two to sandwich the rest of the album.
Rex’s voice is infused with melancholy as he sings, “I lost the joy in my
face / My life was simple before.”
Love may be a universal language, but Rex is even more relatable in
the ways he tackles nostalgia. His longing for the days of old feels even
more personal, more intimate, yet so wide-reaching. The intimacy of
his writing is reinforced by warm instrumentation. On “10/10,” the
synth keys, snappy percussion and lush vocal harmonies give a veneer
of ’80s energy while still sounding fresh. Pony’s production is all the
more impressive when you look at the credits: Rex is a known multi-
instrument virtuoso, and almost all the central instruments are self-
performed.
Creating a musical mood is an art for Rex, using every sound to its
fullest. “Laser Lights” is tinged with noir, featuring groovy saxophone
and flute performances. The lyrics embody
Rex’s songwriting style that is best described as
“effortless.” His lines all have an innate rhythm,
and he never has to stretch his delivery to say what
he wants to say. He accomplishes this with lines
that are at once simple and clever: “Arm to the face,
when we have to speak I usually shoegaze / And
if I saw you in public, I would pretend to tie my
shoelace.”
Much like the innate rhythm in his writing, the
tracks on Pony are expertly composed to build
momentum, every song continuously expanding
into something greater and greater. “It Gets
Better” is a song that literally gets better as the
instrumentation builds and builds. Starting with
highly danceable percussion and piano chords,
the song eventually explodes into an orchestral
climax. There’s only one lengthy song on Pony at
six minutes and 26 seconds, but Rex is poised to
make magnificent and evolving music in the vein
of Frank Ocean’s ten-minute masterpiece “Pyramids.”
Woven between the mellow writing on Pony is high-spirited
celebration. “Never Had The Balls” is full of warmth and happiness.
The sound of birds chirping pads the music, conjuring an image of a
beautiful spring day. It feels like the sun shining down when the hook
hits — if someone asked for an example of a chorus that blossoms, I
would point them to “Never Had The Balls.”
The emotional high point of Pony is undoubtedly “Pluto Projector”
— after first listen, it immediately made it onto my shortlist of songs
to play at my wedding. It is laced in drama, starting with just a soft
guitar and eventually introducing a sublime chamber orchestra. The
angelic background vocals are even performed together by Rex and
his girlfriend. Could it be any more romantic?
Pony is Rex in his element. For being so strongly tied to Rex in the
present, the record’s songwriting is timeless. The song structures are
familiar to pop listeners, but the ever-evolving nature of each track
makes it feel more free-form. A sense of meticulous craftwork is in the
bones of the music, making Pony a refined record for listeners of soft
and delicate e-boy indie. Rex Orange County is quickly moving from
indie-pop prince to king, and the crown looks damn good on him.
The nostalgic glow of ‘Pony’ is Rex at his most relatable
DYLAN YONO
Daily Arts Writer
ALBUM REVIEW
FACEBOOK / SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT
Pony
Rex Orange County
Sony Music Entertainment
She writes about “real love,”
the examples our parents set
that make us think it should
“make our lungs black,” the bliss
we find when we name it for
ourselves.