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When the singer and songwriter Adrianne Lenker<\/a> was 21, she was involved in a bike accident that knocked out one of her incisors. For a while, she walked around with a fake, gold-colored cap in her mouth. But after she was able to invest in a porcelain tooth, Lenker realized she actually didn\u2019t want to forget about the injury.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter all that time with just a gap, it kind of felt strange to not see the scar,\u201d she said in a recent interview.<\/p>\n Today, Lenker\u2019s grin twinkles with a permanent gold replacement. And over the past several years, she has earned a reputation as a songwriter who sees the scars, and turns them into something beautiful. Much of this acclaim has come through her work in the band Big Thief<\/a>, which since 2016 has released five albums of folk-indebted rock music that\u2019s both stylistically adventurous and totally unguarded \u2014 like Fleetwood Mac, if it went to group therapy. Though Big Thief is a band of four equals, Lenker \u2014 who sings, writes and plays guitar \u2014 is the engine powering its sound.<\/p>\n The music producer Philip Weinrobe, who has known Lenker for nearly a decade, described her unadorned, crisp singing as \u201cso honest and so true.\u201d \u201cShe\u2019s willing to go to the edges of her skill without fear or embarrassment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In person, Lenker, 32, is disarmingly sincere and attentive. \u201cI still like looking at the world around me with softness and an open heart,\u201d she said at a Manhattan diner in late January, where she\u2019d met to discuss \u201cBright Future,\u201d<\/a> her fifth solo record, over coffee and eggs. The night before, she\u2019d stayed out late at the Alphabet City jazz club Mona\u2019s, and hadn\u2019t slept much. She pulled off a beanie to reveal a tousle of brown hair.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s so many opportunities to numb out, and go on autopilot \u2014 and that numbness, to me, is the enemy of songwriting.\u201d<\/p>\n Lenker has devoted her life to maintaining close access to her emotions, and her music comes first. She does not have a fixed home base; when she isn\u2019t touring, she rotates around the country, staying with family and friends. She was married to her Big Thief bandmate Buck Meek for three years; they separated and divorced while remaining on tour and carried on, remaining close. (Though she\u2019s expressed reluctance to define her sexual identity, Lenker is currently dating a woman.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Though she\u2019s been bruised in the past, Lenker is emerging into a moment of clarity and confidence. \u201cBright Future,\u201d due March 22, is a renewed statement of purpose: proof that she\u2019s navigating the storms, and that her cultivated resilience somehow hasn\u2019t hardened her to an often cruel world.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The title, Lenker noted, isn\u2019t inherently positive \u2014 it could be the brightness of a sunrise, or an explosion. Yet its austere arrangements and calmed emotions tap into something peaceful: a sense of acceptance about the world, and all its human joys and miseries. There\u2019s also a firm commitment to remaining connected with other people, rather than floating off in isolation. \u201cTo live in this life is to be burdened by the heaviness of whatever existence is,\u201d she said. \u201cI feel that burden through each person I know \u2014 it\u2019s like a loop.\u201d<\/p>\n The album includes raw, contemplative songs like \u201cSadness as a Gift,\u201d<\/a> initially written in the wake of romantic heartbreak. But its mournful lyrics are threaded with a feeling of nourishment and appreciation: \u201cYou could hear the music inside my mind\/And you showed me a place I\u2019ll find even when I\u2019m old,\u201d Lenker sings, her voice tender and knowing, her band playing warmly around her.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you can really allow yourself to feel it, your sadness doesn\u2019t have to be so scary,\u201d she explained, noting that her therapist had nudged her into seeing this perspective. \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t feel it if you didn\u2019t have this immense care \u2014 and so you can see your own love through the lens of the sadness, which is a beautiful thing.\u201d<\/p>\n OVER THE COURSE<\/strong> of a half-day and a follow-up phone call, Lenker was comfortable offering many self-reflective and curious observations \u2014 about herself and her work, but also the world around her. Though her music has a reputation for being serious, she is much more off the cuff. (Weinrobe called her the \u201cgoofiest, funniest person I know.\u201d) And when she did laugh, it somehow sounded thoughtful, like she\u2019d instantaneously and secretly processed why something was funny, and welcomed you in to share the joke.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n She talked about how her friendships with older musicians like Tucker Zimmerman and Steve Fisher \u2014 veteran songwriters who didn\u2019t achieve much traditional success, but never stopped working \u2014 had helped her conceive of songwriting as a craft she might continue to refine for the rest of her life. She asked about the purpose of music criticism, in an earnest way that did not telegraph the skepticism of someone who\u2019s been written about by many music critics, and inquired about the definition of \u201cautofiction<\/a>\u201d when it came up in conversation. (\u201cI\u2019m happy to know that term because I think that\u2019s what a lot of my songs are,\u201d she said.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cShe\u2019s someone who wakes up every day and feels like she\u2019s at the very beginning of trying to unearth the depths of her life,\u201d Meek said in a phone interview. \u201cI think the reward for good work is more work, with her.\u201d<\/p>\n Lenker was born in the Midwest, and briefly raised in a religious cult. Constantly moving around the country, her family only fleetingly lived in what she called a \u201creal house\u201d (the title of the opening track of \u201cBright Future\u201d). She started writing songs at 10: \u201cIt\u2019s been a friend to me more than anything,\u201d she said as the diner slowly filled up, and she finished what would not be her last cup of coffee. \u201cSometimes, I feel I have to check: Is that 10-year-old still in me?\u201d<\/p>\n As a teenager, she dropped out of school to focus on music; a few years later, she enrolled at Berklee College of Music in Boston off the strength of a personal audition for the dean of admissions, and received a full scholarship. While there, she met her future bandmate Meek, later reuniting with him when they were living in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n With the bassist Max Oleartchik and the drummer James Krivchenia, Big Thief embarked on what Lenker described as an endless cycle of recording and touring \u2014 nine months out of the year, for six straight years. Beginning with its 2016 record \u201cMasterpiece,\u201d<\/a> the band won critical praise and intense devotion from a growing fan base attracted to its constantly changing live shows (set list are never repeated) and countercultural charm. They seemed like a group of people you\u2019d meet at a health food store, and end up at their all-night potluck dinner.<\/p>\n Big Thief\u2019s woodsy vibe also masked a serious virtuosity: All of its members attended Berklee, and forged a telepathic musical connection born from repeated practice, as well as natural talent. Lenker, Meek said, has \u201cthis really exploratory relationship with the guitar that, if you analyze it, is super complex \u2014 but to her, it\u2019s all intuitive in the service of the song and the words.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But building an indie band into a reliable brand exerted tremendous pressure on Lenker, both emotionally and physically. \u201cI had a turbulent childhood, and a lot of pain in there,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was all put aside when I was working \u2014 it wasn\u2019t possible to deal with it on the road.\u201d When it all caught up to her, she described it as running at full speed into a brick wall: \u201cI literally, physically, could not move.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2020, right after the coronavirus pandemic began, she was hospitalized. Since then, she\u2019s worked hard at abandoning what she called a scarcity mind-set, a holdover from her past. \u201cI used to play shows for a bag of coffee beans, when I was a teenager,\u201d she said. \u201cIt felt weird to not be afraid that it could all collapse, or something. But I feel like I\u2019ve gotten better at just trusting that it\u2019ll all be OK.\u201d<\/p>\n Though she now pays closer attention to her physical and mental health, Lenker is basically always writing songs. \u201cI was pent up with a lot of stuff that I was keeping to myself, and it had to come out,\u201d she said of \u201cBright Future.\u201d It was recorded in the fall of 2022, following an unusually tumultuous period for Big Thief. That summer, the band had announced plans to perform concerts in Israel \u2014 where Oleartchik was born, and currently lives \u2014 but canceled the dates<\/a> after intense social media blowback.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Lenker freely brought this up, calling it \u201cna\u00efve and not thought out\u201d to believe they could play the shows without arousing criticism, and said she felt it was the type of inner turmoil that could break a band up. They ultimately worked through it, over hours of talking with each other and reaching out to \u201cpeople who are smarter than us.\u201d Lenker expressed both gratitude that the incident had pushed her to remember, \u201cAll right, I have to work on myself, always,\u201d and discomfort with the online vitriol she\u2019d received.<\/p>\n Though she didn\u2019t directly make the connection, it seemed clear that all this had influenced her attitude on \u201cBright Future.\u201d \u201cWhen I collaborate with Big Thief, I put so much energy into that \u2014 it brings this whole other part of me out,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Her two last solo records, \u201cSongs\u201d<\/a> and \u201cInstrumentals,\u201d<\/a> released together in 2020, had been recorded in the early days of lockdown, and derived from \u201cdesperation\u201d and \u201cheavy grief,\u201d both for the world and in her personal life. But on \u201cBright Future,\u201d she tried a more relaxed approach. \u201cQuiet can also be powerful and intense \u2014 when I\u2019m just sitting and playing, I like that feeling of not having to push at all,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I really wanted to push into the naturalness of not pushing.\u201d<\/p>\n Lenker recruited Nick Hakim, Josefin Runsteen and Mat Davidson, multi-instrumentalists with their own robust careers whom she considered friends. (She\u2019s known Hakim since they were teenagers.) Before recording, she told Weinrobe, who produced the album, that she didn\u2019t want to tell anyone what to play. Instead, they worked out each arrangement in real time. \u201cIt was just her and her friends playing music together,\u201d Weinrobe said. \u201cThere was no psychological imposition on the project; we were able to stay in this super pure music-making environment that had almost no recording studio-ness about it.\u201d<\/p>\n The group recorded at the New England studio Double Infinity, where Lenker and her collaborators lived on-site, and spent all of their time together: taking long walks through the nearby wooded areas, cooking group meals, listening to records by Joni Mitchell and Beverly Glenn-Copeland<\/a>. \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone had their phones out for the whole time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Lenker makes no distinction between songs she writes for herself and the ones she writes for her band: \u201cVampire Empire,\u201d<\/a> a Big Thief live staple for years, appears on \u201cBright Future\u201d in a faster, scrappier take. The yearning ballad \u201cFree Treasure\u201d encompasses multiple types of love, she said: parental love; romantic love; the platonic love she felt while recording at Double Infinity; even the love of her dog, Oso.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI think somewhere in our hearts, we all desire for that: to be truly seen and be made time for,\u201d she said. \u201cEven if someone has five minutes to give you, that\u2019s five minutes that feels infinite. I find myself longing for that as an adult.\u201d This was very different from an early Big Thief song<\/a>, she pointed out, where she sang \u201cReal love makes your lungs black\/Real love is a heart attack.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cFinding somebody who gives you that patience and understanding and time in a truly gentle way \u2014 I don\u2019t think I would have even been receptive to that, 10 years ago,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n In New York, Lenker performed some of the \u201cBright Future\u201d songs with Hakim for a private audience at Electric Lady Studios, and was still working out the kinks. \u201cBut there was something special about it because it was just very present,\u201d she reflected. \u201cThe not-perfectness of it is fitting to the record, anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n Part of Lenker\u2019s anti-celebrity appeals from the way her songs can seem like a pane of glass placed between herself and the broader world \u2014 fragile, but a means of seeing her clearly. Some of the songs on \u201cBright Future\u201d had been written about specific heartbreaks, and specific experiences of love. Yet she was chasing something bigger, and wanted listeners to hear that instead \u2014 something that transcended what people expected of her, or sought to discern from her relationships.<\/p>\n \u201cWe come into it not knowing where we came from, or where we\u2019re going,\u201d she said, as strangers ambled by her post-diner perch at the High Line. \u201cAll I know is we lose everything, and everyone we\u2019ve ever come to love \u2014 which, no wonder life\u2019s so hard.\u201d<\/p>\n As she spoke, her voice grew faster and more passionate; her pauses became more intentional. \u201cAll we really have is the condition of our hearts and our souls, so my main goal is to condition myself to be more humble, more soft, more graceful.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n