Today Adrianne Lenker (Big Thief) presents her new single “Ruined” and accompanying music video. At the same time, she also announces that she is going on tour in 2024 – with a stop in Sweden. “Ruined” is a heartbreaking and impressive introduction to Lenker’s long-awaited solo album, due next year. It is with new music behind her that she comes to Stockholm for a gig at Berns on May 11. Tickets go on sale December 8 at 11 a.m. via luger.se.

Big Thief is a band in the finest sense of the word. With a communication that appears telepathic, the four members are tightly linked in an organic, adventurous unit. However, singer, guitarist and the band’s main songwriter Adrianne Lenker shows on her solo material that she is more than capable of creating magic even without the help of the other band members. Although this magic is partly built from other components. The songwriting is, of course, still impeccable but the lyrics are bare, less abstract and more vulnerable as Lenker sings of life’s small moments and heartaches all alone with his acoustic guitar.

Not infrequently, artists claim to strive for closeness, but even more rarely does someone succeed as well as Adrianne Lenker does on ‘songs’ from 2020. Namely, it is the music whose closeness is so intimate that it almost feels forbidden. The sound of fingertips scraping against guitar strings and raindrops pattering against the roof of the small mountain cabin that Lenker moved to during the pandemic creates the foundation for a record that manages to be both deeply personal and universal in one and the same song.