Today, Adrianne Lenker shares a new single ‘Fool’ from her upcoming album, Bright Future, out on 22 March. With bent, plucked, and trembling strings, ‘Fool’ chases its tail for answers with softened beach glass geometry. “If I were him, would you be my family too?” she asks an indecisive lover who wishes to live two lives at once. Adrianne finds no advice. A course is needed, any direction will do. “Just say what it is that you want.” It is the doldrums sailors fear. “What more can I possibly say? / So if you wanna go I say baby okay, okay.”
+ Stream ‘Fool’ on all platforms here +
Accompanying the single is another video directed by Adrianne’s brother, Noah Lenker, featuring Adrianne’s family and their dogs. “I feel like I can hear her laughing and smiling when I listen back to this song. The joy is palpable,” says producer Philip Weinrobe. “It’s easy to forget that Adrianne can do unbridled ecstatic happiness just as deftly as every other emotion in the human experience.” One of the first songs recorded for the album and one of only a handful captured at night, Weinrobe sets the scene: “the fireplace was ripping, Oso was barking, and the vibe was just right. After we captured this one I knew we were gonna make a special record.”
Official Video by Noah Lenker
Following the previously released single ‘Ruined,’ ‘Sadness As A Gift’ sees Lenker at her most familiar and warm, a track that is both utterly timeless, yet sounding new and surprising on every listen. The aliveness of Adrianne’s voice keeps her poetry aloft. She sings in a circle completed by guitar, piano, violin, and all voices. “The seasons go so fast // Thinking that this one was going to last // Maybe the question was too much to ask.”
+ Pre-order Bright Future on recycled LP, black LP, CD and cassette via the 4AD store +
+ Pre-save and pre-order from all stores +
On Bright Future, Adrianne Lenker, a songwriter known for turns of phrase and currents of rhyme, says it plainly, “You have my heart // I want it back.” Documented with analogue precision, what began as an experiment in collaboration, became proof Adrianne’s heart did return, full to the brim, daring her into the unknown.
Bright Future marks Lenker’s first album since 2020’s songs & instrumentals, and features co-production from Philip Weinrobe, alongside contributions from Nick Hakim, Mat Davidson, and Josefin Runsteen. During the high vibrance of autumn 2022, the Big Thief band member got lucky. Everyone could come. Three musical friends, “Some of my favourite people,” had space in their busy touring schedules to join her at the forest-hidden, analogue studio, Double Infinity. The musicians – Hakim, Davidson, and Runsteen – were known to Adrianne but newer to each other. “I had no idea what the outcome would be,” she recalls. The result? “It was magical,” she says. Adrianne’s musical risk became Bright Future, the studio’s first album, a 12-track telling of a journeyed heart.
Bright Future’s co-producer and engineer, Philip Weinrobe, prepared the studio. He has been Adrianne’s partner on previous solo albums, but this was something new. Adrianne did not intend to make an album. They would instead explore the songs with no expectations. Even with an open outcome, from the start, Phil wanted to capture the sessions with the purest, technical honesty. The result has the best qualities of thoughtful engineering with the spontaneous swim of a field recording. There are details to savour, fingertips on strings, felt pads nodding in the piano, the harmonies a few steps back, all smoothly laid to tape. It comes together to allow Adrianne’s songs to be as they are, unarmoured and light-footed.
Admirers of Adrianne’s solo music and Big Thief will find on Bright Future her reliable talent captured in stunning, magnetic clarity. In the company of parlour instruments, Adrianne’s modern melodic and lyrical inventions create new traditions. Her vocal flights at times outwit gravity, then land, guiding along an earthly path. The wholeness of the un-spliced recordings preserves a time of musical friendship during a golden season. The album also features the original recording of the now-beloved Big Thief song ‘Vampire Empire.’ Although they recorded for only some days, in Adrianne’s recollection, “It felt like we were together forever.”
Adrianne will tour Europe and North America throughout the Spring and Summer. A full schedule can be found below. For tickets and more information, head HERE.
March
21st – Big Ears Festival, Knoxville, TN, USA
April
19th – The Black Box, Galway, Ireland* (SOLD OUT)
20th – St. Canice’s Catherdral, Kilkenny, Ireland* (SOLD OUT)
21st – Vicar Street, Dublin, Ireland* (SOLD OUT)
24th – Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow, UK+ (SOLD OUT)
25th – The Hall at Aviva Studios, Manchester, UK + (SOLD OUT)
27th – Barbican Centre, London, UK= (SOLD OUT)
29th – Bristol Beacon, Bristol, UK+ (SOLD OUT)
May
2nd – Le Trianon, Paris, France+
3rd – Cirque Royale, Belgium, Brussels+
5th – The Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, The Netherlands= (SOLD OUT)
6th – Admiralspalast, Berlin, Germany =
7th – Kampnagel, Hamburg, Germany =
10th – The Royal Danish Academy of Music, Copenhagen, Denmark= (SOLD OUT)
11th – Berns, Stockholm, Sweden=
12th – Chateau Neuf, Olso, Norway=
June
9th – The Paramount Theatre, Austin TX, US %
10th – The Paramount Theatre, Austin TX, US %
12th – KiMO Theatre, Albuquerque NM, US % (SOLD OUT)
13th – Rialto Theatre, Tucson AZ, US %
15th – The Theatre at Ace Hotel, Los Angeles CA, US= (SOLD OUT)
16th – The Theatre at Ace Hotel, Los Angeles CA, US + (SOLD OUT)
17th – Fox Theatre, Oakland CA, US =
20th – Revolution Hall, Portland OR, US = (SOLD OUT)
21st – Revolution Hall, Portland OR, US + (SOLD OUT)
22nd – Paramount Theatre, Seattle WA, US + (SOLD OUT)
24th – Treefort Music Hall, Boise ID, US
25th – The Depot, Salt Lake City UT, US = (SOLD OUT)
26th – The Mission Ballroom, Denver CO, US =
28th – Chicago Theatre, Chicago IL, US = (SOLD OUT)
29th – State Theatre, Minneapolis MN, US= (SOLD OUT)
November
11th – Academy of Music Theatre, Northampton MA, US^ (SOLD OUT)
12th – Boch Centre Shubert Theatre, Boston MA, US
13th – Boch Centre Shubert Theatre, Boston MA, US
15th – L’Olympia, Montreal QC, Canada^
16th – Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Toronto ON, Canada^ (SOLD OUT)
19th – Kings Theatre, Brooklyn NY, US^
21st – The Eastern, Atlanta GA, US^
22nd – Venue TBC, Durham NC, US^
23rd – The Anthem, Washington DC, US^
25th – Union Transfer, Philadelphia PA, US^
26th – Union Transfer, Philadelphia PA, US^
* w/ Ellie O’Neill
+ w/ Nick Hakim
= w/ Twain
% w/ Steve Fisher
^ w/ Suzanne Vallie