Adrianne Lenker is in her most prolific season yet. Touting an impressive five albums (two with the folk outfit, Big Thief) in the last three years, she continues to dominate the indie-folk genre. Not only has her artistic output been impressive in terms of quantity, but also the quality of her songwriting and lyricism continues to impress. As the lead singer and songwriter of Big Thief, Lenker has found critical success with albums like 2019’s Two Hands and 2018’s U.F.O.F reaching the top of many publications’ year-end lists. In her solo efforts, though less popular within critical circles, Lenker combines the intimacy of Elliot Smith’s early records with the lo-fi production of more contemporary indie-folk projects. Throughout all her projects is an intimate connection with the natural environment and profound poeticism on the complexity of heartbreak, loss, and spirituality. Her new album Songs is no different, with Lenker penning another song cycle as intimate as the rasp of her voice and the wind through the pines.
Written entirely during the Covid-19 pandemic, Songs finds Lenker in the serenity of a Massachusetts cabin with her sister Zoë, and her audio engineer Phil Weinrobe. The remote location of the cabin seeps into the somber tone of the recording, such as in “come” where the sound of rain weeps alongside the guitar’s timid strums. In “heavy focus”, a track where Lenker desperately tries to hold on the remaining spirit of her last relationship, chirping birds at the end seem to comfort Lenker in her solitude. On tracks like these, the natural environment becomes a second musician, forming irresistible duets with Lenker.