The opening track of Adrianne Lenker’s Bright Future finds the Big Thief frontwoman reminiscing about formative childhood memories, both beautiful and terrifying. But scratch a bit deeper beneath the surface and “Real House” operates as something of an introduction to the album itself, contextualizing its creation within a specific setting, moment, and mindset: “We moved into a real house/A wild field behind it/I wanted to be an inventor/Collected scraps to make a portal/I wanted so much for magic to be real.”
Recorded in a secluded studio in the woods, Bright Future feels stunningly natural, with a bucolic sense of quiet and serenity. Musically, Lenker is accompanied by acoustic guitar, piano, violin, and only occasionally anything else. Using an analog approach, the album crackles and hisses with all the warm imperfections of live instrumentation.
The first sounds on the second track, “Sadness As a Gift,” are a noodled guitar warmup and the creak of a chair, while “Already Lost” opens with a tape booting up before heading into a double-tracked vocal—a rare instance of obvious overdubbing on Bright Future. The track is also notable for its use of banjo, one of the few times a new instrument is introduced on the album.
So consistent is the album’s stripped-back production that tiny features become major traits. The plucky guitars on “Fool” fill out the low end as Lenker implores an uncertain lover to make up their mind, while a sustained violin note on “No Machine” creates a tense atmosphere that transforms the lyric “Don’t know what I’d do without you” from an expression of dedication into one of lost direction.
Lyrically, Lenker matches the album’s sonic approach by exploring the power of life’s intimate moments. “Free Treasure” serves as a diary for summertime nostalgia, as Lenker finds value in a home-cooked meal and “love without measure” after a long day. On “Donut Seam,” the pleasure in these small moments is undercut with pain: “Don’t it seem like a good time for swimming before all the water disappears?” The emotional result is crushing, with Lenker desperate to extract joy from a relationship that’s beginning to evaporate.
On “Evol,” Lenker is haunted by the paradoxes of love, forsaking directness and fully embracing the asymmetry and obscurity that human emotions are so often defined by: “Love spells ‘evol’ backwards people/Words back words backwards are lethal.” Later, she adds: “You have my heart, I want it back.” The effect of this poetic lyricism is an unsettling sense of mystery that lingers beyond the track’s unresolved closing chord. With Bright Future, Lenker stands on the confidence of her talent, complemented by production choices that neither distract nor detract from the emotion of her songwriting.
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