Creaks of chairs, brushing of fabric, a subtle laugh as instruments find their place. What we hear in the opening seconds of Bright Future seems to be Adrianne Lenker inviting us into an intimate moment between friends. Recorded at an analogue studio in the autumn of 2022, what has now become the Big Thief frontwoman’s latest solo album was created in a serene, rural environment devoid of expectation.

At Lenker’s invitation, Josefin Runsteen (violin), Nick Hakim (piano) and Mat Davidson (guitar) came together under the watchful eye of engineer Philip Weinrobe who was ready to capture whatever came out of those few days. The imprint of surrounding woodlands, crackling firewood and quiet contemplation is palpable throughout the album. Opening track ‘Real House’ is a stream-of-consciousness introduction to the record’s key themes of love, the cycle of life and Lenker’s relationship to nature.

Existential dread on a personal and global level is explored in ‘Donut Seam’ (‘this whole world is dying / don’t it seem like a good time for swimming? / before all the water disappears’), alongside quiet epiphanies about simple joys. ‘We could watch a garden grow / we could come in from the cold,’ sings Lenker in ‘Fool’. In contrast to the pure folky sounds of songs like ‘Sadness As A Gift’, ‘No Machine’ and ‘Free Treasure’, ‘Fool’ has interlocking layers of guitar that warble and bend around fuzzy vocals, inhabiting the same psychedelia-infused universe as tracks like ‘Time Escaping’ and ‘Spud Infinity’ from Big Thief’s 2022 album Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You.

An early version of ‘Vampire Empire’ (released as a Big Thief single last year) features halfway through, replacing drums and electric guitars with the rustic acoustic palette used throughout Bright Future, before fading out into piano ballad ‘Evol’. The relentless wordplay of its lyrics (‘love spells evol backwards people / words back words backwards are lethal’) sees Lenker force us to slow down and consider each line. The short but lyrically dense ‘Candleflame’ follows, before lullaby-esque ‘Cell Phone Says’ and banjo-led ‘Already Lost’ gently deposit us at the album’s heart-wrenching finale, ‘Ruined’.

Lenker is a known master of capturing emotional vulnerability and the imperfections that go along with it. Yet, this is not what makes the album her best yet. In that way in which crops take on the taste of the land and weather surrounding them, she seems to have wholly succeeded in yielding the spoils of her labour. These fruits from this latest harvest have never been sweeter.

Bright Future is released by 4AD on Friday 22 March; Adrianne Lenker is on tour Friday 19–Monday 29 April; main picture: Germaine Dunes.