On Saturday night, Aug. 23, in Nashville, fans arrived to Big Thief’s show at the Ryman Auditorium prepared for a standard (but no less great) evening of songs. Instead, they were in for a pretty epic surprise: the band would be playing their new unreleased
triple album, Horsepower, in its entirety, alongside some of the people who helped create it. And those people? An incredible array of Americana and roots icons including Iris DeMent, Gillian Welch, and Lucinda Williams, as well as a renowned cast of players.
There were signs on the way into the venue that something was up: the curious lack of an opening act, the posters around the venue asking to refrain from phone use, the stage set with enough seats for a band three times their size, the fiddles waiting on stands. As soon as the trio of Adrianne Lenker, Buck Meek, and James Krivchenia, along with touring bassist Joshua Crumbly, took their seats around a mysterious wooden table — and stayed seated for almost the entire show — the audience realized something very unusual was in store.
Lenker, in a pair of jeans and patterned shirt, explained that Horsepower was made in Nashville last May (Welch is the co-owner of Woodland Studiosalongside David Rawlings, but the band did not mention whether or not that was the site of the recording). She also told the crowd that, while the album would be played in its entirety, it would not be in sequence — and those coming to hear tour staples like “Not” and “Simulation Swarm” or tracks from 2025’s Double Infinity might be a little bit disappointed.
“If you had some hopes of hearing some of the songs you might know, those could be discarded,” Lenker said, explaining there would be two sets with an intermission in the middle. “But if you’re all open to it, it could be a really unique night of music.”
She wasn’t wrong. As she played the first song solo on acoustic guitar and slowly welcomed more and more players to the stage, it felt like a culminating moment for a band that has always integrated folk and country influences into their unique corner of indie rock. Here are our five takeaways during this special night with Big Thief.
Most of the songs on Horsepower have been in the Big Thief universe for a few years, if not much longer.
Though the band didn’t explicitly name all of the 29 songs that will appear on Horsepower as they played them, many are not completely new to fans. Songs like the title track, “Happiness,” “Baby Honey Sweet Darlin,” “Spatchcock Chickenshit Bingo,” and “Muscle Memory” have been performed live onstage before, and another, “Sadness Is a Gift,” was previously recorded on Lenker’s solo album, Bright Future. In fact, almost two-thirds of Horsepower has already been debuted on the road, often in much different configurations. One (known initially as “Bloom” and now “21”) was even the first song, Lenker said, that she and Meek wrote together.
Iris DeMent, Gillian Welch, and Lucinda Williams’ voices are a big part of the album’s sound.
It was DeMent who first took the stage to join the band, which makes sense with their origin story. “When Buck and I first met, we bonded over Iris DeMent,” Lenker once told Rolling Stone. “It’s a deep part of us.” Welch joined next, picking up the acoustic guitar and banjo, and Williams came to the stage for the very last two songs. Lenker, DeMent, Welch, and Willaims’ voices all made for perfect folk harmonies, and DeMent, in particular, looked like she was having an absolute blast, clapping and dancing in her seat the entire time — only stopping to give Lenker, who admitted to being nervous, a rub or two on the back.
It’s some of the twangiest-sounding arrangements Big Thief have created yet, but it’s not just limited to that.
In addition to Big Thief’s core unit, as well as DeMent, Williams, and Welch, the band was joined by a renowned cast of session players and instrumentalists that helped Horsepower’s sound reach rich, dynamic heights: Greg Leisz and Russ Pahl on steel and guitar, with Zosha Warpeha, Richard Bowden, and Hannah Read as a three-piece fiddle section. Recorded in Nashville, it’s certainly some of the twangiest sounding work they’ve done, but the influences are incredibly varied: you can hear echoes of Gram Parson, Joni Mitchell, John Prine, Rodney Crowell, even a little Paul Simon and Radiohead. And, of course, Williams, DeMent, and Welch. It’s also extremely rich in narrative storytelling. There are a lot of on-the-road songs about travels through this strange, heartbreaking, and beautiful planet.
Big Thief are thinking a lot about how to be happy in this difficult world.
“This fucked up world, why must everything be conquered,” Lenker asked on “Beautiful World.” But it’s clear she doesn’t see wallowing in misery as any sort of serviceable way to cope. Happiness is a recurrent theme here, as is love (Lenker dedicated “6-7-8-9 She’s Fine” to her girlfriend), as is finding ways to feel joy and even silliness in the madness. On the delightful silly “Spatchcock Chickenshit Bingo” Lenker offers a laundry list of little ways to do so: “Put your pants on backwards/Walk to the store like that.” It’s probably the first Big Thief song that could ever lend itself to a TikTok dance. Lenker told the audience that the last song of the night, “Gift Pleasure Joy,” was written in the studio, while they were recording, about the process itself. “What a gift, what a pleasure, what a joy,” she sang, finally getting up from her seat for the only time of the evening. It seemed clear the band wanted fans to leave with a way to find their own gifts, pleasure, and joy.
There will eventually be a film of the Ryman experience.
There were multiple cameras documenting the entire night for a concert film to be aired at a later date — details are yet to be revealed. We also don’t know when the album will be released or officially announced. We do know that the band plans to do the entire thing again on Sunday night in Nashville, possibly with some of the same special guests. So if you want to see another iteration of this unique performance, there’s still a little time to hop a plane to Nashville.
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