Spectreview: Adrienne Lenker – songs / instrumentals

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At this point, Big Thief’s Adrienne Lenker is as iconic a contemporary folk songwriter as just about anybody working today. She works in a single thread of sounds and moods and she works that thread so powerfully that any given track of hers has the potential to stop you in your tracks. So for brevity’s sake, assume that songs and instrumentals, her new simultaneously-released records, are exactly what you imagine them to be: elliptical guitar patterns folding in on themselves like light refracted on a river; Lenker’s thin, inimitable voice uttering breathtaking poetry inside which you’re guaranteed to find snapshots of yourself.

songs is the record you’d expect from the artist behind abysskiss, her excellent solo release from 2018. Though they’re similarly constructed, the songwriting on songs is arguably more vibrant, more focused. Lenker and co-producer Phil Weinrobe recorded this collection in a cabin at the foothills of the Berkshires, the space of which contributes heavily to the intimate acoustics of Lenker’s guitar. songs comes from a place of fresh pain; most of its songs, if not directly dedicated to Lenker’s ex-partner, are framed in the sickening madness of heartbreak. Blessedly, Lenker retains her ability to turn even deeply personal musings into blank canvases on which her audience can project their experiences. Thus the chilly tributaries of “two reverse” and “anything” are both hers and yours, as is the simple pleasures of “zombie girl” and the gently moving “dragon eyes”. Throughout, her guitar never ceases its movement save for the pensive, purposeful figures of “come” and “my angel.” Its spindly arpeggiation remains a benevolent presence behind even the most devastating moments of the record, like the resignation of “not a lot, just forever” and the fragility of “half return”.

instrumentals, with its two extended ambient pieces, apparently chronologically bookends the recording of songs. In that context it emerges as the true gift of this double release, perhaps out of surprise. “music for indigo” is a collection of aural salves that, while personally directed toward someone we’ll never know, may still help you drift off in kind. The piece shifts between whole colors, from harmonic-laden dissonance to traditional folk patterns, but its the candidness of its creation that leaves an impact. From Lenker’s quiet utterance of “I’m starting over” to the shifting ambience, the intimacy is staggering. “mostly chimes,” meanwhile, is notable for what’s eventually absent; another guitar melody in the vein of its twin gradually drops a third of the way through and leaves behind only ambience. Posited as a true closer for the double-album cycle, its a graceful rumination on time’s inability to wait on grief. In its final few seconds Lenker exits stage right, her shoes crushing leaves underfoot, their travel punctuating songs’ abrupt end.

As a whole, songs and instrumentals feel like two dimensions forming a 3D painting. They capture the role of loss as a vital part of the human experience: the former songs you can live with; the latter songs you can live inside. Together, they further epitomize Lenker’s gifts as a folk storyteller.

Highly recommended for the gaps between tree leaves.