"Los Angeles / Grandmother" Released: August 5, 2025[1]
Double Infinity is the sixth studio album by the American indie rock band Big Thief, released on September 5, 2025, through 4AD. Produced and mixed by longtime collaborator Dom Monks, the album was recorded as a live band over the span of three weeks at the Power Station in New York City, with several session musicians contributing to the recording process.
Recorded as a core three-piece for the first time, it was the band's first album without bassist and founding member Max Oleartchik, following his departure in 2024.[2] Describing the album, lead vocalist and guitarist Adrianne Lenker stated: "Double Infinity is like shouting from the mountain, these deepest things, all the way into the sky, and all the way into the core of the earth."[3]
After many beautiful years together, Max is no longer in Big Thief. Our love for each other is infinite, and we are so grateful for all we have shared these many years together since the beginning of our journey as a band. We wouldn’t be who we are without Max. This separation marks the end of an era, and the beginning of a new one for Big Thief. This change was made for interpersonal reasons with mutual respect in our hearts.[4]
Following Oleartchik's departure, the band toured in the summer of 2024 with two new additional live members – Justin Felton (bass) and Jon Nellen (additional drums) – performing eleven dates in total between July and August. In October, the band released a collaborative studio album, Dance of Love, with singer-songwriter Tucker Zimmerman, which had been recorded prior to Oleartchik's exit.[citation needed]
Recording
In preparation for recording Double Infinity, the band wrote “something like 50 or 60 songs"[5] as a three-piece, with initial plans for the album's style and sound going through "conceptual rigmarole." Buck Meek noted: "We all kind of agreed we wanted to make a heavy rock album. That was the first concept."[3] Abandoning this idea, the band attempted to record a stripped-back album instead: "We tried to record the album with just the three of us in isolation in the woods. But we realised that we really wanted to open up the doors and bring in a big community of people that we admire."[5]
The band recorded Double Infinity at the Power Station in New York City over a three-week period, recording sixteen songs in total with their longtime recording engineer Dom Monks serving as producer.[5] The band worked with ten session musicians, looking for a set of collaborators, rather than a replacement for Oleartchik. Krivchenia and Lenker both likened the process to tentatively dating after a "divorce" or break-up.[3][5][6]
Meek elaborated:
We felt stuck in the echo chamber of our thoughts. So we went to the opposite extreme — back to Manhattan where we started — to surround ourselves with community, old friends from Brooklyn, and new friends and heroes. We needed to be in community and in the midst of the city to have that stimulus.[7]
The band wanted the ten session musicians to bring "constant liquid sonic elements" to the recording process, with the assembled collective including additional drummer and percussionist Jon Nellen, who had performed with the band on their 2024 tour; and three backing vocalists – Alena Spanger, Hannah Cohen and June McDoom – who brought a "witchy" energy to the sessions and recorded their vocals "under many layers of cosy blankets in their own separate room". Lenker felt that her lead vocals were "cushioned by these angels" during the recording process:
I’m like, super fluid, but we had our ladies’ vibe! Hannah was calling us ‘the goyles’ and it kind of brought that out of me! I feel masculine a lot, and I feel very fluid. I change, and I’m always different. [...] It was powerful, and it felt good.[3]
Other close studio contributors included Natural Information Society’s Mikel Patrick Avery, and Laraaji, who provided "organic droning on zither" and "an iPad with wild flute and violin patches." Described by the band as "the great New York musician", Mikey Buishas would sample the musicians as they recorded, creating a "loop with ten feet of tape around a mic stand.[7]
Lenker praised the addition of other musicians in the studio: "Big Thief is something that is flexible and fluid, and can expand and contract. In those moments of playing with everybody, we were all Big Thief."[5] Upon completing Double Infinity, the band adopted bass guitarist Joshua Crumbly into their live line-up.[7]
Writing and composition
The first track written for the album was the song "Grandmother", with Lenker noting:
That song challenges the idea of what rock 'n' roll can be. Laraaji singing on it was so unexpected – that surprised us all. It also reminded us, wait, rock 'n' roll’s so far beyond a genre. Like, the earth has mountains and the bedrock and the core and the earth's crust – it’s the rock. Then there’s the roll of the rivers, the ether, the wind, the clouds – these things that flow and blow across the surface of the rock. It reminds us of the idea of two infinities, too, the microcosms and the macro-universe and the dichotomy we live with in every moment, knowing that our bodies will die but we feel this sense of an infinite spirit. That’s rock 'n' roll. It’s taking all these things and basically alchemising them into something that can unify us, so we can sing together and metabolise the craziness of life together.[6]
According to the review aggregator Metacritic, Double Infinity received "universal acclaim" based on a weighted average score of 83 out of 100 from 21 critic scores.[9]
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