Tell Big Thief All Your Secrets

In making their new album 'Double Infinity,' the American indie rock band found forever in letting go.

- By Andrea Panaligan

I'm rushing, as I'm prone to do. It's morning, and my interviewing instincts have kicked in — telling me a few minutes of conversation will never be enough to capture the totality of an artist, or at least capture it in a way that matters.

On the other side of the world is Buck Meek, guitarist and backing vocalist of American indie rock band Big Thief; his totality contained by a tiny Zoom window. The light orange of an early sunset gently touches his cheeks. He says he's happy to see me. I think I hear cicadas, though that may be my imagination.

Buck and his co-members, vocalist and songwriter Adrianne Lenker and drummer James Krivchenia, are set to release their sixth album, "Double Infinity," this Sept. 5.

"My first time ever talking to a Filipino journalist," he smiles. "I'm excited."

I am surprised by the revelation. I think I am having a heart attack.

Big Thief found most of its Gen Z listeners on TikTok, which is kind of insane to realize about a band that seems flung out of space. They started as just Adrianne and Buck, who knew each other from Berklee College of Music in Boston but didn't meet again until a chance encounter in Brooklyn a few years later. The kismet of this reunion and the ethereal nature of their music led me to picture them biking through 1970s New York City à la Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe — in reality, it was 2013 when they began touring, and 2014 when they released their first two EPs. (They were, it turns out, in Lena Dunham's NYC.)

The band was eventually rounded out by two more Berklee alumni: Max Oleartchik, bassist and Buck's longtime friend, and their drummer James. Two of their albums, 2019's "U.F.O.F." and 2022's "Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You," have been nominated for Best Alternative Album at the Grammy Awards.