Big Thief - Simulation Swarm
"Eat the gun as it feeds you."
Album: Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe You [5th album]
Recorded: New York
Genre: Folk, Indie Folk
Album Release: February 11th 2022
Single Release: January 19th 2021 [6th single]
Length: 4:12
Producer: James Krivchenia [the drummer of Big Thief]
Vocalist: Adrianne Lenker [age 31]
Label: 4AD Records
Live from SHEROES in 2022
Official Audio
Charts, Streams & Sales
Spotify: 51,000,000 +
YouTube Music: 3,800,000 +
Grammy Awards Nominee 2023 Best Alternative Music Album (losing to Wet Leg)
NPR Best Albums 2022: #4
Paste Magazine Best Albums 2022: #1
Pitchfork Best Albums 2022: #7
The Atlantic Best Albums 2022: #2
Credits
Acoustic guitar, bass [x2], drums, electric guitar [x2], percussion, piano
Details
- In 2019, Lenker was hospitalised for burnout after touring and laying her heart bare for the world to see on a regular basis. Her songs are naked, despite their abstractions, and so heartfelt that performing them was emotionally exhausting for the singer.
'Simulation Swarm', a song about detachment from a sterile world, was wrote in this context. The song becomes more personal, and less abstract, as it goes on, with the later verses concerning the singers relationship with her brother Andy, who was given up for adoption when he was baby. "Only one little Andy, will you return again?" At the time of writing the two had not been reunited but it's obvious how Lenker's heart aches for him, or at least the memory of him.
Lenker has said that she feels doesn't feel in control of her songwriting. She told Exclaim! Magazine
"It feels like a collaboration with the universe or a higher power. It doesn't feel like it's just originating from my brain. It feels like I'm following an invisible thread of intuition..."
That, to me, reads as if Lenker is aware of her subconscious feelings instead of being guided by a divine being. As if she connects to emotions she doesn't know she has through putting pen to paper and works it out on the page. If a higher power has divined to work through the songwriting of Big Thief's frontwoman then it would only seem to fit to reunite Adrianne with her long lost brother. - The photo of the band above shows how close they are. It looks like they're making a James Krivchenia sandwich and I daren't think about what is going on with their hands below the frame, but it looks like they're enjoying it.
Artwork
