[翻译]来自NME的乐评搬运 献给2022年第一张神专

https://www.nme.com/reviews/big-thief-dragon-new-warm-mountain-i-believe-in-you-review-3154381

Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe

8.6

Big Thief / 2022

The Brooklyn-formed band's fifth album explores a broad range of sounds, and comes filled with openness

这个来自布鲁克林的乐队，在第五张专辑中探索了广泛的声音来源，充满了开放性。

By

El Hunt

10th February 2022

Think of Big Thief, and one quality comes to mind: openness. It’s not just written all over Adrienne Lenker’s image-rich lyrics, but also woven into the tightly-knit and instinctive way that the band perform and create together. If you’ve ever been lucky enough to see the band live – or even dipped a toe into their captivating rendition of ‘Not’ on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert – you’ll be familiar with the sparkling magic they have as a group. Music seems to pour out of them; what was originally rehearsed and learned now feels as effortless as a reflex. As Lenker puts it in ‘Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You’s closing song ‘Blue Lightening’, a love letter to Big Thief:“I wanna be the shoelace that you tie”

一想到Big thief，脑海中就浮现出一个特质：开放。它不仅有Adrienne Lenker所写下的各种形象立体而丰满的歌词，还融入了一种出于乐队本质而凝聚在一起进行表演和创作的生活形态。如果你有幸看到乐队的现场表演，或者甚至在与Stephen Colbert合演的Not的后期节目中，你会很熟悉他们作为一个团队所拥有的闪闪发光的魔力。音乐似乎从他们身上倾泻而出；最初排练和学习的东西，现在感觉像条件反射一样轻而易举。正如Lenker在专辑的结尾曲Blue Lightening中所说，这是一封写给Big Thief的情书：“我想成为你系的鞋带”。

A 20-song album, recorded in four distinct locations (Upstate New York, Topanga Canyon, The Rocky Mountains and Tucson, Arizona) over the course of five months, ‘Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You’ might just be their most open-ended work to date, too. From the playful streak of ‘Spud Infinity’ – a song that rhymes “finish” with “potato knish” and ends with a raucous jaw harp solo that sounds a little like Daft Punk jamming out on a didgeridoo – to ‘Blurred View’s modulating basslines, it’s a record focused on expansion. Despite the hefty play-time, it never feels like a slog.

在五个月的时间里，他们在四个不同的地方（纽约州北部、托潘加峡谷、落基山脉和亚利桑那州图森）录制了一张20首歌的专辑，这可能也是他们迄今为止最为开放的作品。从Spud Infinity一首顽皮的乐章开始，以“potato knish”押韵“finish”，并以沙哑粗粝的颚式竖琴独奏结束，听起来有点像Daft Punk在didgeridoo上来回弹跳，到Middle View里调制的贝斯低音，这是一张试图扩展延伸音乐边界的唱片。尽管全专时长不算短，但听起来并不无聊吃力。

Recalling both Johnny Cash and Neil Young, ‘Sparrow’ and ‘Changes’ are home to some of Lenker’s finest songwriting; the latter finds her trying make sense of the marching of time, and does so beautifully. “Death, like space,” Lenker sings, “The deep sea, a suitcase”. Here, death seems unknown but less than terrifying in her hands; it’s simply another room waiting and hidden behind a locked door.

专辑中还致敬了Johnny Cash和Neil Young， Sparrow和Changes是Lenker一系列最优秀的歌曲创作的源泉；在后者中，她试图理解时间的推移，而且完成得很漂亮。 “Death, like space,” 伦克唱道，“The deep sea, a suitcase”。在这里，死亡似乎是未知的，但在她的手中并不可怕；这只是另一个等待前往的房间，藏在一扇锁着的门后面。

Along the way, the band employ some weird methods that ultimately end up making sense; often allowing their varied surroundings to creep into the creative process. Many of the songs recorded in Upstate New York with collaborator Sam Evian are particularly experimental; the easy and ambling ‘Certainty’ came about during a power-cut, with Evian playing his bass part through a bluetooth speaker as the candle-lit band recorded onto a cassette tape. Recorded on the same stint, the smouldering ‘12,000 Lines’ – Lenker’s answer to the classic love song – was recorded immediately after a freezing-cold dip in a creek, wetsuits dripping onto the studio floor. On the twinkling title-track, meanwhile, one of the credited instruments is an icicle (the band sampled the sound of them shattering).

在歌曲创作过程中，乐队采用了一些奇特的技巧，并最终巧妙融合为一个整体；他们常常将不同的环境融入创作过程。与合作者 Sam Evian在纽约州北部录制的许多歌曲都是极具实验性的；在一次停电期间，埃维安通过一个蓝牙扬声器播放他的低音部分，烛光下的乐队录制到了一盘盒式磁带上，这是一种轻松而悠闲的“确定性”。相似的，在阴郁克制的12,000 Lines中— Lenker对经典情歌表示了回应—泡在一条冰冷的小溪里，湿淋淋的衣服滴落在录音室的地板上，声音随即就被录制下来。与此同时，在让人眼前一新的主打曲目中，其中有一个值得称赞的乐器是冰柱（乐队对它们破碎的声音进行了采样）。

There’s a certain looseness that suits Big Thief well across the whole record. Those in search of a tightly cohesive album knitted around a single concept have probably come to the wrong place entirely – but for a sprawling answer to the band’s two huge 2019 breakthrough records ‘Two Hands’ and ‘U.F.F.O’, then look no further.

在整张专辑中，有一种非常契合Big Thief的轻松舒适的氛围。那些希望听到一张概念紧密结合的专辑的人可能完全走错了方向—但相比于乐队2019年的两张巨大突破性唱片Two Hands和U.F.F.O，想要找到一个在此基础上延伸的结果，那可能也要失望了。