American Indie band Big Thief has released new single “Certainty”, the group’s newest track dropped on 7th September 2021.
The band took to their Instagram to announce the news to fans.
The single’s press release describes the new material as “a track that showcases the most innate parts of Big Thief: the human journey, real love, and the raw emotions that accompany the two.” The Brooklyn rockers are formed of four members all Berklee College of Music alum and consist of members Adrianne Lenker on vocals and guitars, Buck Meek on guitar and backing vocals, Max Oleartchik on bass and James Krivchenia on drums.
The group’s new offering of music not only showcases’ a personal portrait of the group but also cements their heartfelt folk roots. Along with classic light guitar lines and powerfully emotive vocals, the group’s new single also features harmonies courtesy of American singer Hannah Cohen. The New York-based band recorded the track under unusual circumstances, whilst recording at the upstate New York facilities Sam Evian’s Flying Cloud Studios the group encountered a power cut that lasted for three days. Due to this, the track was recorded directly on a four-track. A format that has been made somewhat redundant due to the newer technological advances in multitrack recording.
Within the new single’s press release Buck Meek recounts the power outage and describes the process taken to proceed with the recording. “On the third day of the outage, I found Adrianne on the porch writing a new song, so I sat with her and we finished it together, with the rain falling from the gutters splashing over our guitars,. James and Sam saw us writing, and quickly set up a four track tape machine in the kitchen, powered by the F250 cigarette lighter out in the yard. They set up the drums by the sink, and Max plugged his bass into a bluetooth speaker set on top of the stove. Take 2 had a great bark from Sam and Hannah’s pup Jan during the solo, but we ended up going with take 3 because it took us about that long to learn the chords. Then we made pancakes and sausages and ate breakfast for dinner.”
“Certainty” is not the band’s only release since their 2019 album Two Hands. Big Thief recently released two songs, “Little Things” and “Sparrow”, both were recorded in 2020 and produced by the group’s drummer James Krivchenia. Although both tracks were finalised last year the former was recorded in California and “Sparrow” was recorded in the Catskills, located in the band’s home city of New York.
Krivchenia had this to say concerning the track “Little Things”, the drummer describes the song’s musical process. “It’s in this sort of evolving free time signature where the beat is always changing, so Max [Oleartchik, bassist] and I were just flowing with it and guessing where the downbeats were – which gives the groove a really cool light feeling.” He has also given this description concerning “Sparrow”. “We all just scattered about the room without headphones, focused and in the music – you could feel that something special was happening. It was a funny instrumentation that had a really cool natural arrangement chemistry – Max on piano, Buck [Meek, guitarist/vocalist] providing this dark ambience, me on floor tom and snare and Adrianne in the middle of it with the acoustic and singing.”
Along with the release of their new material, the group have also announced the dates for their month-long US tour which progresses into Europe and the UK. The tour started yesterday, the release date for “Certainty” and began with a performance in Louisville. The schedule includes upcoming various dates across the US and continues until 2022 with dates in Manchester, Glasgow and London.
Big Thief UK Tour Dates
24/02/2022 – Manchester Academy – Manchester
25/02 – O2 Academy Bristol – Glasgow
02/03 – O2 Shepherds Bush Empire – London
03/03 – O2 Shepherds Bush Empire – London
04/03 – O2 Shepherds Bush Empire – London
Photo Credit: Alexa Viscius/Press Release
