Big Thief Share “Little Things” and “Sparrow”

Big Thief have dropped two new songs, “Little Things” and “Sparrow.”

Big Thief have dropped two new songs, “Little Things” and “Sparrow.” “Little Things” was recorded with Shawn Everrett at Five Star Studios in Topanga, California. “Sparrow” was recorded with Sam Evian at Flying Cloud Recordings in the Catskills (July/August 2020). Both songs were produced by Big Thief’s drummer James Krivchenia. This is the first new material from the band since 2019’s Two Hands (with last year’s “Love in Mine” being a Two Hands outtake).

“Little Things” is a story built upon a very literal sense of uncertainty. “It’s in this sort of evolving free time signature where the beat is always changing,” explains Krivchenia, “so Max [Oleartchik] and I were just flowing with it and guessing where the downbeats were – which gives the groove a really cool light feeling.” The uncertainty of the rhythms lay fertile ground for Lenker’s lyrics, as she opines to a nameless lover “maybe I’m a little obsessed / Maybe you do use me” and “One step behind you / Following you down / I was inside of you / Where are you now / Where are you?”

On “Sparrow,” we find Big Thief at their most contemplative, poetic, and metaphorical. A sense of foreboding envelops this song-without-a-chorus (Lenker: “Kept wanting to put in a chorus and the song kept spitting it out”), which maintains a repetitious, hymnal, almost dirge-like melodic pattern. Lenker’s biblically-tinged story of Paradise lost sprawls while the song’s intensity grows. This recording is the band’s first take of “Sparrow.” “We all just scattered about the room without headphones, focused and in the music – you could feel that something special was happening,” explains Krivchenia. “It was a funny instrumentation that had a really cool natural arrangement chemistry – Max on piano, Buck [Meek] providing this dark ambience, me on floor tom and snare and Adrianne in the middle of it with the acoustic and singing.”

Big Thief Tour Dates
Sat. Aug. 21 – Garden Grove, CA @ Garden Amphitheatre’
Tue. Sept. 7 – Louisville, KY @ Headliners Music Hall *
Wed. Sept. 8 – Indianapolis, IN @ HI-FI – SOLD OUT *
Fri. Sept. 10 – Chicago, IL @ Pitchfork Music Festival
Sat. Sept. 11 – St. Louis, MO @ The Pageant *
Sun. Sept. 12 – Lawrence, KS @ Liberty Hall *
Tue. Sept. 14 – Dallas, TX @ Granada Theater ^
Wed. Sept. 15 – Austin, TX @ ACL Live at the Moody Theater ^
Fri. Sept. 17 – Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall Downstairs ^
Sat. Sept. 18 – New Orleans, LA @ Civic Theatre ^
Mon. Mon. Sept. 20 – Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium *
Tue. Sept. 21 – Atlanta, GA @ The Eastern *
Wed. Sept. 22 – Raleigh, NC @ North Caroline Museum of Art +
Fri. Sept. 24 – Richmond, VA @ The National #
Sat. Sept. 25 – Queens, NY @ The Governors Ball Music Festival
Mon. Sept. 27 – Buffalo, NY @ Asbury Hall
Tue. Sept. 28 – South Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground – SOLD OUT #
Thu. Sept. 30 – Northampton, MA @ Pines Theatre – SOLD OUT %
Fri. Oct. 1 – Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer – SOLD OUT *
Sat. Oct. 2 -Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer – SOLD OUT *
Thu. June 9, 2022 – Barcelona, ES @ Primavera Sound