Adrianne Lenker Drops Solo “abysskiss” in October

Adrianne Lenker sports a mischievous smile between songs when she’s leading her band Big Thief through an evening of heartbreaking, poignant, and haunting lyrics, as she seems to think of some intriguing rejoinder to an audience catcall, a request from the pit, or something else that’s caught her attention onstage. Sometimes, she lets the sentence that’s curling up her mouth at the corners out into the air, to be received by a rapt crowd hanging on every letter she exhales. Once, in Denver, she mused about the possibility of every hair on one’s head having its own eyeball, adding to thousands on one’s cranium, offering wild and limitless angles of everywhere, offering a giggle after her spoken thought. Other times, to be sure, she files these thoughts away, keeping them in a folder in her mind for later use.

It’s those other times that Lenker files away that make up the stories in her new solo release, abysskiss, scheduled to be released in early October. Songs that are stories that pop up in between songs, on the bus between shows, in a pawn shop on Colfax, or in a restaurant in Utah – presumably. She seems to be writing and writing as much as she’s inhaling and exhaling. And the last couple of years f constant touring with Big Thief have not slowed her down one bit.

From Saddle Creek, the label releasing abysskiss:

“Adrianne Lenker has been writing songs since she was 10 years old. Her backstory has been well documented in various interviews and profiles for Big Thief over the last 3 years. Despite, or more likely because of the constant touring and studio work, the last few years have been some of the most prolific for Lenker as a writer.

Songs pop out at soundcheck. They pop out on late night drives between cities. They pop out in green rooms, hotel stairwells, gardens, and kitchens around the world.  In the hands of Lenker songwriting is not an old dead craft. It is alive. It is vital. With little regard for standard album cycle practice or the idea of resting at all, Lenker set out to make a document.

Songs can be slippery and following 2+ years on the road with Big Thief, Lenker felt a growing need to document this particular time in her life in an intimate, immediate way.

 “I want to archive the songs in their original forms every few years,” explains Lenker. “My first solo record I made was Hours Were the Bird. I had just turned 21 and moved to New York City where I was sleeping in a warehouse, working in a restaurant and photographing pigeons. Now five years later, another skin is being shed.”

Listen to “Cradle,” the first single from abysskiss, below, and pre-order your copy NOW. You’ll regret having missed it if you pass this one up, we guarantee it.