Brooklyn, NY · indie folk · indie rock

Big Thief

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Adrianne Lenker's trembling songcraft in band form — the most quietly devastating live act in indie rock.

Big Thief formed in Brooklyn in 2015 around singer and guitarist Adrianne Lenker and guitarist Buck Meek, who met at a show in Boston and began performing as a duo, touring together in 2013 and releasing two EPs, a-sides and b-sides, the following year. All four original members, including drummer Jason Burger and bassist Max Oleartchik, had studied at Berklee College of Music.

James Krivchenia, initially brought on as a sound engineer, took over on drums from Burger after the band's debut album. Oleartchik played bass for nine years before leaving in 2024, citing interpersonal reasons; Joshua Crumbly now plays bass in the live band.

Their music sits between folk and rock, built on fingerpicked and electric guitar lines, unsteady dynamics and Lenker's close, breath-audible vocals. The songs tend toward the intimate and the ambiguous, dealing with family, bodies, memory and violence in plain but oblique language.

The band's debut, Masterpiece, appeared on Saddle Creek Records in 2016, followed by Capacity in 2017. After signing to 4AD, they released U.F.O.F. and Two Hands in 2019, both earning Grammy nominations, and the double album Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You in 2022, also Grammy-nominated. Double Infinity, their first record as a trio, followed in 2025.

Live, the group is known for reworking material substantially from the recorded versions, letting quiet songs build into extended, loud passages and back again. Lenker also releases solo records, and the members have pursued separate projects alongside the band.

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indie folkindie rock