The album will be released on March 22 via 4AD/Beggars. ‘Bright Future’ marks Lenker’s first solo album since 2020’s ‘songs & instrumentals’ and is co-produced by Philip Weinrobe. It features contributions from Nick Hakim, Mat Davidson and Josefin Runsteen. On May 5, Adrianne Lenker will perform in a sold-out Concertgebouw, Amsterdam.
With the announcement, Lenker shares her new single ‘Sadness As A Gift‘. After the previously released single ‘Ruined‘, ‘Sadness As A Gift’ shows Lenker in her most familiar and warm way. The song is timeless, but still sounds new and surprising with every listen. The vibrancy of Adrianne’s voice keeps her poetry floating. Surrounded by guitar, piano, violin and all the voices she sings: “The seasons go so fast // Thinking that this one was going to last // Maybe the question was too much to ask.”
On “Bright Future,” Adrianne Lenker, a singer-songwriter known for her sharp language and rhythmic poetry, puts it simply: “You have my heart // I want it back.” Captured with analog precision, it began as a collaborative experiment but grew into proof of Adrianne’s heart returning fully, inviting her to embrace the unknown.
During the fall of 2022, the Big Thief band member got lucky. Anyone could come. Three musical friends, “Some of my favorite people,” made room in their busy touring schedules to join her in the wooded, analog studio Double Infinity. The musicians – Hakim, Davidson and Runsteen – were known to Adrianne, but less known to each other. “I had no idea what the outcome would be,” she remembers. The result? “It was magical,” she says.
Philip Weinrobe, the co-producer and sound engineer of ‘Bright Future‘, prepared the studio. He has been Adrianne’s partner on her solo albums before, but this was something new. Adrianne had no intention of making an album. Instead, they would explore the songs without expectations. Even with an open outcome, Phil wanted to capture the sessions with the purest technical honesty from the start. He rolled an Otari 1/2 inch 8-Track and a Studer console across the old cherry wood floors of Double Infinity.
To fill the air of the 150-year-old space, Adrianne wanted piano, guitar and violin. Mat Davidson plays them all. “I’ve known Mat a long time,” she says, “It doesn’t matter what instrument, his spirit just pours through.” At the age of 17, Adrianne met Nick Hakim. She trusted her boyfriend of 15 years to bring his sensitivity to the piano. “The way Nick would hold my songs, he would put every ounce of love.” Adrianne first met Josefin Runsteen in an Italian castle and sought out the classically trained violinist and percussionist for her “magnetic and infectious” energy. “She has such fire.” In addition to instrumentation, they also created a choir by adding carefully measured vocal harmonies. The sessions impressed and enchanted Adrianne. “I think the thing these people have in common, they are some of the best listeners I know musically. They have extreme presence.”
The shelter and convenience of the wooded Double Infinity studio are an element of the recordings. “It felt like everyone’s nervous systems released,” she says. “Once we were IN the song, somehow we just knew. No one stopped a take. We didn’t listen back. I only listened after everyone else left.” As a result, ‘Bright Future‘ exhibits the excellent characteristics of careful technical design in combination with the spontaneous atmosphere. There are details to enjoy, fingertips on strings, felt pads buckling in the piano, the harmonies a few steps back, all smoothly recorded to tape.
Fans of Adrianne’s solo music and Big Thief will discover her trusted talent on ‘Bright Future‘, captured with stunning, magnetic clarity. In the company of living room instruments, Adrianne’s modern melodies and lyrical discoveries create new traditions. The album also features the original recording of the now beloved Big Thief song ‘Vampire Empire‘. Although the album was recorded in just a few days, Adrianne remembers: “It felt like we were together forever.”
Tracklist “Bright Future”
1. Real House
2. Sadness As A Gift
3. Fool
4. No Machine
5. Free Treasure
6. Vampire Empire
7. Evol
8. Candleflame
9. Already Lost
10. Cell Phone Says
11. Donut Seam
12. Ruined
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