Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You

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Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You
File:Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You (Big Thief).png
Studio album by Big Thief
Released February 11, 2022 (2022-02-11)
Recorded April–December 2020[1]
Studio
Genre
Length 80:13
Label 4AD
Producer James Krivchenia
Big Thief chronology
Two Hands
(2019)		 Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You
(2022)
Singles from Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You

Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You is the fifth studio album by the American band Big Thief, released as a double album through 4AD on February 11, 2022. Produced by drummer James Krivchenia, the album features 20 songs which were recorded over five months in five different locations across the United States. The album was supported by six singles. It received universal acclaim from critics upon release and entered the top forty in several territories, including Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, New Zealand, the United States, and the United Kingdom. The album is nominated for Best Alternative Music Album at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards.

Background

In 2019, Big Thief left Saddle Creek and signed to 4AD, releasing two studio albums: U.F.O.F. in May 2019 and Two Hands in October 2019.[6] The albums were the band's most successful and acclaimed to date: U.F.O.F. received a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album[7] and both albums appeared on the Billboard 200 chart, with Two Hands peaking at 113.[8] Their song "Not" from Two Hands was named by many publications as one of the year's best songs[9][10][11] and was nominated for Best Rock Song and Best Rock Performance at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards.[12] Big Thief toured in support of the albums until March 2020, when their European tour was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[13] Drummer James Krivchenia released a solo album titled A New Found Relaxation in June 2020.[14] In October 2020, Lenker released two solo albums: Songs and Instrumentals.[15] Guitarist Buck Meek released his second solo album Two Saviors in January 2021.[16]

Recording

File:James Krivchenia - Big Thief at the Lexington - 32724343181 (cropped).jpg
Drummer James Krivchenia produced the album

Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You album was produced by drummer James Krivchenia, who conceived the concept behind its recording.[17] In late 2019,[17] while at a hotel in Copenhagen, Krivchenia presented the band with the concept that they would travel to four different locations: Upstate New York, Topanga Canyon in California, the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, and the Colorado mountains. They would record at four different studios with four separate engineers, and go to each place with a specific sonic plan in mind.[18] Krivchenia's intent was to capture a full expression of Lenker's songwriting and the band onto a single album.[17] Krivchenia's production handling also marks the band's first album not produced by their longtime collaborator Andrew Sarlo.[19]

The band recorded over the span of five months, resulting in 45 complete songs which were ultimately edited down to the album's 20 tracks.[17] As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the band initially quarantined in the Vermont woods for two weeks in July 2020.[20] The first session was in July and August 2020 at Sam Evian's Flying Cloud Recordings in Upstate New York. The second session was with Shawn Everett in October 2020 at Five Star Studios in Topanga, California.[1][17] The third session was with engineer Dom Monks, who previously engineered U.F.O.F. and Two Hands; the session took place in November 2020 at MusicGardens – Studio In The Clouds in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado,[1][17] located just outside Telluride.[19] The fourth and final session was in December 2020 at Scott McMicken's Press On Studio in Tucson, Arizona.[1][17] Mat Davidson, a former member of the Low Anthem and a longtime friend of the band who performs under the moniker Twain, was invited to contribute to the recordings in Arizona.[17] Davidson had previously featured on the band's second studio album, Capacity (2017),[21] with his vocals and fiddle performances featuring heavily throughout the Arizona Dragon New Warm Mountain recordings, marking the first time the band incorporated a fifth instrumentalist for such a substantial contribution.[17] The album also features recordings from a fifth location, in April 2020 at The Elf Inn in Westhampton, Massachusetts.[1]

Release and promotion

On April 22, 2021, Lenker announced a series of solo tour dates for November and December 2021.[22] On May 11, 2021, Big Thief announced North American tour dates for September and October 2021.[23] On June 8, 2021, the band announced a European tour from January–March 2022.[24] However, the European tour dates were rescheduled.[25]

On August 10, 2021, Big Thief released the songs "Little Things" and "Sparrow". The singles marked the band's first new music since the release of the 2020 single "Love in Mine", an outtake from Two Hands.[26] On September 7, 2021, the band released another song, titled "Certainty",[27] followed by another, named "Change", on October 6. They also announced plans for a North American tour slated for April and May 2022.[28]

In the November 2021 issue of Mojo, Big Thief revealed plans to release a 20-track double album in early 2022.[20][29] On November 16, 2021, the band confirmed the album's title Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You and scheduled release on February 11, 2022.[17] "Time Escaping" was released as a single the same day.[30] On December 14, 2021, Big Thief released the singles "No Reason" and "Spud Infinity".[31] On January 19, 2022, "Simulation Swarm" was released as the album's final single.[25]

Title

The album shares its name with its title track "Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You", which Lenker first performed live in January 2019.[32][better source needed] The track's lyrics mention "a dragon in the phone line" and a "new warm mountain where the stone face forms and speaks".[33][34] In the chorus, Lenker sings: "I believe in you / Even when you need to / Recoil".[35]

Similar lyrics also appear in Lenker's song "Anything", from her solo album Songs (2020): "Dragon in the new warm mountain / Didn't you believe in me?".[36]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source Rating
Metacritic 88/100[38]
Review scores
Source Rating
AllMusic 3.5/5 stars[39]
Exclaim! 9/10[40]
The Independent 5/5 stars[41]
Mojo 4/5 stars[42]
NME 4/5 stars[43]
Pitchfork 9.0/10[3]
Rolling Stone 3.5/5 stars[2]
Sputnikmusic 3.8/5[44]
The Times 4/5 stars[45]
Uncut 9/10[46]

Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You was released to critical acclaim from contemporary music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 88, based on 26 reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim".[38] Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave it 8.4 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.[37]

The album received a 9.0 out of 10 rating from Pitchfork, with reviewer Andy Cush calling it a "20-song epic of kaleidoscopic invention, striking beauty, and wigged-out humor, rambling far beyond the bounds of their previous work."[3] Peter Watts of Uncut called it a "landmark" album, writing, "Adrianne Lenker's genius has fully blossomed on this monumental double LP, which seamlessly blends her ambiguous melodies and absorbing narratives with a yearning for classic Americana and the band's indie-rock leanings."[46] Ethan Shanfeld of Variety praised the album's "spirit of experimentation," writing, "If the ethereal folk of U.F.O.F. and earthy indie-rock of Two Hands indicated each end of Big Thief's sonic spectrum, Dragon posits an entirely new axis."[33] James McNair of Mojo praised the album's "admirable ambition" but criticized its lack of stylistic cohesion as being jarring at times.[42] Helen Brown of The Independent gave the album a perfect five-star rating, writing, "In a market saturated with arty folk rockers, Big Thief stand out not by doing things weirder, but by doing them better." Brown praised Lenker's "questing outward gaze and quirky lyrical choices" and her "beady-eyed magpie knack for catchy melodies."[41] Kaelen Bell of Exclaim! praised the "astonishing" effectiveness of the album's sonic diversity, writing that the songs "feel in conversation rather than competition, linked by the band's near-mythic symbiosis and Lenker's durable writing. Her songs are stretched, knotted and vaporized across the record, buried in instrumentation and effects on "Time Escaping" and "Flower of Blood" only to be dusted clean, naked as the day on the spellbinding "The Only Place" or "Promise Is a Pendulum"."[40] Writing for No Depression, John Amen praised the album, concluding, "Lenker emerges as one of the more gifted melodists, subtly versatile singers, and liberated lyricists of her generation. The band demonstrate their encyclopedic absorption and seminal reconfiguration of diverse genres and subgenres as well as production styles ranging from lo-fi to hi-fi, from the garage-y to the celestial."[47]

In a less favorable review, Marcy Donelson of AllMusic wrote, "It seems unfair to call DNWMIBIY a failed experiment, as it's loaded with gems – including some of Big Thief's most free-spirited work to date – however, it lands much more like a showreel than a plotted album."[39] Tony Inglis of The Skinny wrote that the "highs here are some of the highest in the band's prolific discography", and praised the "beguiling" experimentation on the tracks "Heavy Bend", "Blurred View", "Little Things", "Time Escaping", and "Flower of Blood"; Inglis, however, criticized the album's second half, which he felt "[clumps] together without discernible personality" and was worse than any of the songs on Lenker's solo album Songs (2020).[48]

"Little Things" was ranked the fifteenth on Pitchfork's "The 100 Best Songs of 2021" list.[49] "Little Things" was awarded the Best New Track distinction by Pitchfork, who commented, "Big Thief perfect their natural ability to turn fleeting moments into unrestrained narrative."[50]

Year-end lists

Publication List Rank Ref.
The Atlantic The 10 Best Albums of 2022
2
[51]
Billboard The 50 Best Albums of 2022
33
[52]
Entertainment Weekly The 10 best albums of 2022
4
[53]
Exclaim! 50 Best Albums of 2022
3
[54]
NME The 50 best albums of 2022
24
[55]
NPR Music The 50 Best Albums of 2022
4
[56]
Paste The 50 Best Albums of 2022
1
[57]
Pitchfork The 50 Best Albums of 2022
7
[58]
Rolling Stone The 100 Best Albums of 2022
35
[59]
Uncut The Top 75 Albums of the Year
5
[60]

Accolades

Grammy Award nominations for Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You

Grammy Awards
Year Nominated work Category Result Ref.
2023 "Certainty" Best Alternative Music Performance Pending [61]
Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You Best Alternative Music Album Pending

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Adrianne Lenker, except where noted. 

No. Title Length
1. "Change"   4:55
2. "Time Escaping"   3:48
3. "Spud Infinity"   5:34
4. "Certainty" (Lenker, Buck Meek) 3:07
5. "Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You"   4:43
6. "Sparrow"   5:11
7. "Little Things"   5:44
8. "Heavy Bend"   1:36
9. "Flower of Blood"   4:24
10. "Blurred View"   4:06
11. "Red Moon"   4:19
12. "Dried Roses"   2:35
13. "No Reason"   3:47
14. "Wake Me Up to Drive"   3:43
15. "Promise Is a Pendulum"   4:12
16. "12,000 Lines"   2:59
17. "Simulation Swarm"   4:12
18. "Love Love Love"   4:13
19. "The Only Place"   3:14
20. "Blue Lightning"   3:51
Total length:
 80:13

Personnel

Charts

Chart performance for Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You
Chart (2022) Peak
position
Australian Albums (ARIA)[62] 19
Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria)[63] 35
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders)[64] 6
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia)[65] 60
Canadian Albums (Billboard)[66] 91
Danish Albums (Hitlisten)[67] 22
Dutch Albums (MegaCharts)[68] 6
French Albums (SNEP)[69] 108
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)[70] 24
22
New Zealand Albums (RMNZ)[71] 21
Portuguese Albums (AFP)[72] 15
Scottish Albums (OCC)[73] 5
Spanish Albums (PROMUSICAE)[74] 52
Swedish Vinyl Albums (Sverigetopplistan)[75] 10
Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade)[76] 35
UK Albums (OCC)[77] 15
UK Independent Albums (OCC)[78] 5
US Billboard 200[79] 31
US Independent Albums (Billboard)[80] 3
US Top Alternative Albums (Billboard)[81] 3
US Top Rock Albums (Billboard)[82] 3

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 17.4 17.5 17.6 17.7 17.8 17.9 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  24. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  26. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  63. ↑ "Austriancharts.at – Big Thief – Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You" (in German). Hung Medien.
  64. ↑ "Ultratop.be – Big Thief – Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You" (in Dutch). Hung Medien.
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  72. ↑ "Portuguesecharts.com – Big Thief – Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You". Hung Medien.
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  82. ↑ "Illegal name entered Big Thief/Big+Thief/chart?f=408 Big Thief – Chart history" Billboard Top Rock Albums for Big Thief.
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