It’s been a massive year for New York City based Big Thief. Having accumulated international acclaim through the release of their albums Masterpiece in 2016 and Capacity in 2017, they’ve returned this year with two new and vastly different albums: UFOF and Two Hands. I was lucky enough to have a chat with Big Thief’s guitarist Buck Meek following these releases.

Opinion Police: Two Hands was recorded in the desert shortly after UFOF. How did the isolation help the record to take form?

Buck: The desert was such a hot and intense environment. I think the life there is so resilient. It’s small and tough and so beautiful. It facilitated this really live experience, because we made this record using mostly first and second takes. I think that kind of expanse helped us to let go.

Opinion Police: How would you best describe the way that Two Hands fits into your discography?

Buck: I think it's a really honest portrayal of our relationship as a band. Two Hands expresses the way we are getting closer and closer as human beings and as friends after travelling the world for the last five years. We’ve really learned to trust each other and to communicate and to just be really honest with ourselves and with each other. I think the record really recognised that.

Opinion Police: Two Hands is a great record. It’s so raw and vulnerable. One track in particular stood out to me, ‘Shoulders’. There’s quite a violence to the lyrics and instrumentation of that track. What was the meaning behind it?

Buck: I think with that song we unearthed the fear that lays between all that divides it. The fear beneath the politics and the borders and hate. These manifestations of fear lay beneath us all. Adrienne has described it as a political song without using political language. Trying to get to the bottom of all of that.

Opinion Police: When did you realise that you had enough material for a second album so soon?

Buck: Adrienne has been writing for a couple of years because we recorded Masterpiece and Capacity just six months apart as well. We’ve been touring for two years and in that time Adrienne has written so many songs. We went into a cabin in February and we came out with almost fifty songs. We had the original intention of boiling them down to one record. Maybe boiling fifteen down to twelve. But two very distinct different feelings appeared from that. We ended up with maybe twenty-five or thirty songs that we felt needed to go on a record. So two different polarities emerged which became UFOF and Two Hands. We wanted to honour this instead of mixing them into one.

Opinion Police: Do you think any of those leftover tracks might come out at a later date?

Buck: I think so, I hope so! It’s always so hard to narrow it down. I hope all of them can come out. We did record quite a few more songs. But at the end of the day we wanted succinct records that felt like one piece.