Big Thief: U.F.O.F. [4AD]

Why you'll love it

This LP comes with a download card, and Side B ends in a locked groove. U.F.O.F. earned a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Music Album and a 9.2 Best New Music review from Pitchfork.

This edition

• Download card included
• Locked groove at the end of Side B

About the album

According to the title track, the letters stand for UFO friend, which suits a record this curious about the world. Big Thief cut it in June 2018 at Bear Creek Studio in Woodinville, Washington, with producer Andrew Sarlo, playing live together in one big room so the songs could breathe. Two Hands, its companion record, followed that October.

Adrianne Lenker and Buck Meek first played together as a duo before forming the band in Brooklyn in 2015. Lenker wrote every song, and her voice sits right at the centre, with Meek's guitar, Max Oleartchik's bass and James Krivchenia's drums moving around it like weather. "Contact" builds from a whisper, "Cattails" rolls along with easy warmth, "Century" glows, and "Orange," "Betsy" and "Jenni" show off the band's mix of hush and sudden noise.

The title track was the first single, followed by "Cattails" and "Century," and the album reached No. 3 on the Americana/Folk Albums chart. Metacritic scored it 87, and AllMusic later counted it among the best albums of the 2010s. It also reached No. 2 on Billboard's Vinyl Albums chart, which suggests its fans are, like us, people who own more turntables than is strictly sensible.

Also at Kops: more Big Thief on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On 4AD (cat# 4AD0129LPXE), the 2019 album.