Big Thief's Buck Meek announces new album, 'Two Saviors,' shares "Second Sight"
Not only is Big Thief singer Adrianne Lenker releasing two solo albums this year, but guitarist Buck Meek has just announced one of his own, too.
His upcoming solo album, Two Saviors (to be released January 15 via Keeled Scales) was recorded with producer and engineer Andrew Sarlo, who also supervised the first four Big Thief LPs. According to a press release, Sarlo requested that the record be recorded under these specific conditions: “they make the album in New Orleans, during the hottest part of the year, spend no more than seven days tracking, all live, on an 8-track tape machine with only dynamic microphones, and no headphones, not allowing the players to hear back any takes until the final day.” Buck’s band for the album was Adam Brisbin (guitar), Mat Davidson (bass, pedal steel, fiddle), Austin Vaughn (drums), and Buck’s brother Dylan Meek (piano, organ).
“Writing these songs was a process of creating talismans,” Buck says, “little prayers and visions from within the constant flux of pain, healing, and discovery – that I could return to for perspective, and share with those in need.”
The new single is one of the album’s positive, upbeat moments, “Second Sight,” which chimes in with a chorus that proclaims, “I work for free / because love I all I need.” On this track in particular, Buck notes, “The value in our world is built by the labor of love – a currency that accrues no debt, enriching both the giver and receiver. This wealth provides the vitality needed to lift a hammer, to raise a roof, and to lay upon the eaves in silent awe of nature and civilization and the culmination of universal effort. Magic (the left hand of love?) arises from attention, and is accessible to all without prejudice. A creation from nothing, from some uncaused cause, some eternal unmoved mover.”
You can listen to “Second Sight,” as well as “Roll Back Your Clocks” (which was released earlier this year) below. Full tracklist below too; pre-orders here.
TWO SAVOIRS TRACKLIST
1.Pareidolia
2. Candle
3. Second Sight
4. Two Saviors
5. Two Moons
6. Dream Daughter
7. Ham On White
8. Cannonball! Pt. 2
9. Two Moons (morning)
10. Pocketknife
11. Halo Light
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Must-Hear Folk Albums of 2020 So Far
Bill Callahan – Gold Record
Phoebe Bridgers – Punisher
Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit – Reunions
Arlo Mckinley – Die Midwestern
Bob Dylan – Rough and Rowdy Ways
Neil Young – Homegrown
In a 1975 Rolling Stone interview, Neil called his long-shelved-and-now-finally-released album Homegrown "the darker side to Harvest." With more hindsight, he called it "the missing link between Harvest, Comes a Time, Old Ways and Harvest Moon" in Jimmy McDonough's 2002 Neil Young biography Shakey. Those albums are all on Neil's folkier, more acoustic side, and Homegrown is indeed cut from that cloth. As soon as you hear the opening of "Separate Ways," you're transported right back to the warmth of the Harvest era. It's of the same proto-slowcore variety of that album's opener "Out On the Weekend," but even more haunting and melancholic. Just 30 seconds in, and Homegrown already lives up to the description Neil gave Cameron Crowe of it 45 years ago.
That same mood carries over into second track "Try," which -- like "Separate Ways" -- features The Band's Levon Helm on drums, and Levon really managed to capture the bare-bones, slow-paced drumming style that these types of quietly revolutionary Neil Young songs always demanded. "Try" is also one of two songs on Homegrown with backing vocals by Emmylou Harris (the other being "Star of Bethlehem"), and her soaring voice makes for a truly lovely contrast with Neil's more somber delivery. And as melancholic as those songs are, they've got nothing on the melancholy of the entirely-solo cuts "Mexico" (voice and piano) and "Kansas" (voice, acoustic guitar, and harmonica), or on "White Line," which features Neil, his acoustic, and his harmonica joined only by some lead guitar by The Band's Robbie Robertson. It's on those breathtaking songs where you can really hear why Neil -- coming right off the release of On The Beach -- might have felt like he was digging himself into a hole of dour, depressive music. But all these years later -- now that Neil has cemented his legacy over and over again and proven to be an artist who can evolve and adapt with the times without losing his own uniqueness -- those songs feel like buried treasure, especially for fans who gravitate towards his most hushed material. Full review here.