Tag Archives: abysskiss

#1327: Adrianne Lenker – symbol

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Counting down the days until the new Big Thief album arrives. Double Infinity. I’m very excited. ‘Incomprehensible’ came out in June. I liked it. I’m writing this post in June too, so another song might have been released as a single in the past couple months. I don’t know. I’m sure that one was good too. It’s funny to me how I probably wouldn’t have a clue who Big Thief or Adrianne Lenker were, or at least come to like their work as much as I do now, if I hadn’t been out-of-my-mind bored and unemployed in 2019. I found Abysskiss on an Indieheads thread on Reddit. Dug it, I think, almost immediately. And luckily enough that year, Big Thief decided to release two albums. The ball just continued to roll from there. The group are most likely one of my favourite bands out of the 2010s. Adrianne Lenker’s always got an interesting song up her sleeve. Her solo material’s just as wealthy in its quality. Abysskiss is still my favourite of hers, and ‘symbol’ has always been a highlight from there.

A lot of good things about ‘symbol’ I can relay to you. I think what first got to me about the track, trying to think six years ahead, was how Nick Drake-ish/Pink Moon-y the guitar picking sounded. And I’m a big fan of those two things, so I was a sucker for it already. Sort of reminded me of ‘Go to Sleep’ by Radiohead too. There’s an ominous tone to Lenker’s acoustic guitar, reinforced by the droning one-note melody she adopts for the verses. But then the key changes to a lighter note for the choruses. The weight is lifted, she sings about feeling good after seeing someone smile, and her vocal skips along the light percussion that pans all over the soundscape. It’s a little rinse-and-repeat. The lyrics of the second verse are the same as the first. But there are thousands of other songs that do the same. And it works well here too. Very well. As I write this, it’s become clear that Lenker does have something for the concept of ‘infinity’, as it’s mentioned in this song too. And then there’s ‘Spud Infinity’ from Dragon New Warm Mountain…. Cool to see. I also find it humorous that she snuck the term “FaceTime” into the song. I feel it must have been intentional in some way. I get a little kick out of it.

And as much as like the song, I still really don’t know what it’s about. I’m sure it’s about a bundle of different things. On the surface level, there’s love, there’s the passing of time and a connection between the two. Very vague on my part. Might even be completely wrong. Thankfully, Genius contains a quote from Lenker that makes things much more clearer. “Writing it helped me articulate the recognition of a very deep sense of home contained within the warmth of my loved ones and friends made visible in something as simple as a smile.” That’s sweet. And that’s not meant to sound condescending in any way. I feel that warmth all over in the song. I could sink into a bed listening to it. Or watch a sun going down. Either scenarios are favourable. And I like the video for the track too. Lenker walks down the boardwalk of Coney Island singing the track. There are cuts to families and randomers enjoying their day out. And everything finishes with a slo-mo firework display. Fantastic, heartwarming visuals. Just perfect for the music it accompanies.

#1005: Adrianne Lenker – out of your mind

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2019. Was a new year, and I had recently been laid off from my first job out of uni. To pass the time, while mind-numbingly scanning through applications, I listened to a bunch of albums that the Indieheads subreddit page had listed as ‘Album of the Year’ for 2018. There were 30 of them. There was only one I properly liked. It was abysskiss by Adrianne Lenker. You see the Wikipedia page I just linked to? I created it. I couldn’t take that a page hadn’t been made for it. Last year November I created a Wikipedia account just to make the thing. Listening to that album began a whole domino effect. I sought out Big Thief, listened to Capacity and Masterpiece. Kinda dug them both. But then ‘UFOF’, the single, came out, followed by ‘Cattails’, ‘Century’ and then U.F.O.F. the album, and just like that, Adrianne Lenker became a new favourite songwriter of mine.

‘out of your mind’ arrives as a bit of an odd one when going through abysskiss. After the four mainly acoustic folky, synth-tinged numbers that come before it, ‘…mind’ opens with a grungy electric guitar. Sprightly acoustic guitars take up the rest of the soundscape in both channels, but what I think the track is based around is Lenker singing the vocal while playing that electric guitar in one take. I’m not much of a lyrics guy, but what I gather is that there is a relationship involved. The whole time you’ll think Lenker’s singing about the person she’s seeing, but it’s when she uses her ‘Annie’ nickname in the last chorus that it becomes clear she’s actually taking on the perspective of her significant other. In that way, she’s reflecting on the way she acts as a person and how her partner may perceive her. It’s certainly a different way of approaching a narrative, particularly in a song.

This track is one of most recent I’ve heard when I had a sort of “eureka/a-ha!” moment. For a long while, I was having some major rhythm displacement with it. Every time I was singing along to it, I always found that the “Is it aaaannyyyy…” line for the chorus came in a beat too late. Everything was all 4/4 until that last bar before the chorus. Turned out I was missing the count-in completely. It sounded to me like the downbeat came on the very first strum of the electric guitar that starts the song. It actually starts on the second. So instead of 1-2-3-4, it’s “and, 1-2-3-4”. It would be a lot handier to visually explain it. But once I realised it, it was like ten lightbulbs going off in my head. I liked the song even with my off-timing, but with it all coming together, it truly secured itself as a favourite.