Big Thief has a new album, as does Zach Top, a young country singer with roots in old country. And the Icelandic-Chinese singer Laufey brings a classical-music and jazz influence to her pop songs.
TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. There’s a lot of new music being released this fall, and rock critic Ken Tucker has chosen to showcase new songs by three very different acts. Big Thief has a new album, as does Zach Top, a young country singer with roots in traditional country music. There’s also Icelandic Chinese singer Laufey, who brings a classical music and jazz influence to her pop songs. Here’s Ken’s review of this eclectic gathering.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “DOUBLE INFINITY”)
BIG THIEF: (Singing) In the arms of the one I love, still seeing pictures of another from the future or the past, what’s lost or waiting.
KEN TUCKER, BYLINE: Few bands have been as widely acclaimed in recent years as Big Thief, whose signature sound is the haunting voice of Adrianne Lenker. Big Thief’s new sixth album – I just played a bit from the title track, “Double Infinity” – finds the former quartet now a trio. But its sound has expanded with the addition of backup singers for the first time. Whether Lenker’s vocals needed backing is up for debate, but it certainly added a chummy collegial air to this album. On the song called “Los Angeles,” this band from Brooklyn, New York, soaks up the LA sun and heat and turns out a warm hymn to cross-continental friendship.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “LOS ANGELES”)
BIG THIEF: (Singing) Los Angeles, 3:33 – nothing on the stereo, dirty tea. You’re like the Mona Lisa smiling in the half light mysteriously. But seriously, I’d follow you forever, even without looking, You call, we come together even without speaking. You sang for me. You sang for me.
TUCKER: Where Adrianne Lenker’s voice swoops and soars, Zach Top’s voice has a pinched nasal tone that connects this 27-year-old all the way back to classic country crooners like Lefty Frizzell and Webb Pierce. Top is enough of a craftsman that he can fill a funny song like “Good Times & Tan Lines” with so many amusing little details and vocal curlicues that it becomes something more substantial than a novelty.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “GOOD TIMES & TAN LINES”)
ZACH TOP: (Singing) A little bit of dust, a little bit of smoke. Fullerin’ a Chevy down a gravel road headed to a spot everybody knows. Cannonball swingin’ from an old freight rope. Talking ’bout good times and tan lines, cold beer and summer nights. That was all there was to life – good times and tan lines, good, good times and tan lines.
TUCKER: Zach Top’s big hit singles and new album “Ain’t In It For My Health” signal a shift in country music, which has spent recent years emulating hip-hop rhythms. Top is making popular a new variation on the neotraditionalist country music of the 1990s. Top addresses the gap between hipster country and his own retro style in a disarmingly direct manner on “Country Boy Blues.”
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “COUNTRY BOY BLUES”)
TOP: (Singing) I shined up my pick-up and slipped on my go-to-town boots. I hit Music City like a good-timin’ honky-tonkin’ fool. I’ve been walkin’ for hours, startin’ to think it wasn’t worth the trip, oh, ’cause I kinda feel like a dinosaur down on the Vegas Strip. Yeah, every spot in town got a drink and a band. So why can’t I hear a damn country tune? I’ve been up and down and all around lower Broadway with these old country boy blues.
TUCKER: Now, let’s take a big swerve from country to classical – specifically, the classically trained cellist, pianist, guitar-strumming singer-songwriter called Laufey.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “SNOW WHITE”)
LAUFEY: (Singing) Can’t help but notice all of the ways in which I failed myself. I failed the world all the same. I don’t think I’m pretty. It’s not up for debate. A woman’s best currency’s her body, not her brain. They try to tell me, tell me I’m wrong. But mirrors tell lies to me. My mind just plays along.
TUCKER: With her smooth jazz phrasing and arrangements, the 26-year-old Laufey has charmed millions who first became aware of her via her TikTok videos. Laufey, on her new third album, “A Matter Of Time,” cleverly melds her old-school influences and writes lyrics that have an invigorating sting to them. Listen, for example, to her witty put-down of an egotistical guy called “Mr. Eclectic.”
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “MR. ECLECTIC”)
LAUFEY: (Singing) Bet you think you’re so poetic quoting epics and ancient prose. Truth be told, you’re quite pathetic, Mr. Eclectic Allan Poe. Did you ever…
TUCKER: As different as these three acts are, what Big Thief, Zach Top and Laufey have in common is the way they succinctly summarize both the allure and the flaws of the people they’ve fallen in or out of love with. You end up either wishing you were the object of their admiration or glad you’re not on the receiving end of their criticism.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “INCOMPREHENSIBLE”)
BIG THIEF: (Singing) Incomprehensible. Incomprehensible.
MOSLEY: Ken Tucker reviewed new music by Big Thief, Zach Top and Laufey. If you’d like to catch up on interviews you’ve missed, like our conversation with author Mary Roach on scientific breakthroughs and replacing body parts or New York Times magazine reporter Robert Draper on the assassination of Charlie Kirk, check out our podcast. You’ll find lots of FRESH AIR interviews. And to find out what’s happening behind the scenes of our show and get our producers’ recommendations on what to watch, read and listen to, subscribe to our free newsletter at whyy.org/freshair.
FRESH AIR’s executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Briger. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shorrock, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Susan Nyakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Our consulting visual producer is Hope Wilson. Thea Chaloner directed today’s show. With Terry Gross, I’m Tonya Mosley.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “INCOMPREHENSIBLE”)
BIG THIEF: (Singing) But I like a double number, and I like an odd one, too. And everything I see from now on will be something new. I’m afraid of getting older. That’s what I’ve learned to say. Society has given me the words to think that way. The message spirals. Don’t get saggy. Don’t get gray. But the soft and lovely silvers are now falling on my shoulder. My mother and my grandma, my great-grandmother, too, wrinkle like the river, sweeten like the dew and as silver as the rainbow scales that shimmer purple, blue. How can beauty that is living be anything but true? So let gravity be my sculptor. Let the wind do my hair. Let me dance in front of people without a care. Let me be naked alone with nobody there, with mismatched socks and shoes and stuff stuffed in my underwear. Incomprehensible. Let me be incomprehensible.
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