![]() ![]() In the next verse she speaks to the listener: now we are seeing the masterpiece, now she looks a lot like us. “I saw the masterpiece/She looked a lot like me,” Lenker sings in “Masterpiece”. The masterpiece is not just a cheeky self-congratulatory reference, but rather a specifically familiar state of being. Yet the album really is all about familiarity, as we see in the title track. Big Thief - Paul (Letra e msica para ouvir) - Oh the last time I saw Paul / I was horrible and almost let him in / But I stopped and caught the wall / And. In Randy, the speaker describes herself as having already transformed irreconcilably from one realm to another, as a way of describing an alienated mental state in “Randy.” “I’m a wolf in a city of women,” Lenker sings, this starkness contrasted hauntingly with her bright and twangy, Emmylou Harris-like, musicianship. “Can you teach me how to transform?/I’ll step right in and cocoon until I’m born.” Elsewhere a speaker speaks of “a horse hair in my food,” a “raccoon in my room” and “bluejays all in bloom ” hummingbirds at least twice each. ![]() In that same song, the speaker speaks to a caterpillar: ![]() In “Paralells,” Lenker muses unexpectedly “I can’t say I’ll miss my human form much.” The spirit and album, like the two figures pictured on the album’s cover, is concerned with the similarities and boundaries between the human and the animal. Three of the twelve tracks have first names for titles: they are described with such loving detail you begin to think that Lorraine, Paul, and Randy could have been your cousins or your next door neighbors. Lenker’s lyrics assume familiarity and closeness. There are a lot of references to siblings, moms, dads. Masterpiece travels from diners to hospitals, to motels, to passenger seats, to interstates and freeways. There is a lot going on in the intricate lyrics of the songs on this album, but I was struck by the physical details of objects and settings described by Lenker. The band has been playing together since 2006 - this album is where they come into their idiosyncratic, gorgeous own. I found myself returning to it as I listened to the aptly-titled album by the band Big Thief, whose songs and vocals are done by Minneapolis native Adrianne Lenker. This album, like the photo on its cover, is both comforting and slightly off-putting. It features a low-lit girl and a younger boy - they could be brother and sister, maybe - staring in awe at a small plastic dinosaur and a small (living) bird. The cover art for Big Thief’s album Masterpiece seems to say it all. ![]()
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