Daily Dose: Adrianne Lenker, “from”

Daily Dose is your daily source for the song you absolutely, positively need to hear every day. Curated by the Paste Music Team.

Adrianne Lenker has released “from,” the third single off her forthcoming album abysskiss, out this Friday, Oct. 5, on Saddle Creek Records. The record is Lenker’s first batch of new music since Big Thief’s 2017 album Capacity, on which she serves as lead singer and songwriter.

The song follows previous singles “symbol” and “cradle” in Lenker’s delicate, dense finger-picking style. Her voice sounds small here, like she’s whispering into the microphone while hiding under a blanket. The quiet nature of her singing shifts the focus to the sounds hovering just outside the edges of her voice. There’s heavenly whirring, the gentle tink of metal on metal, a bow moving across strings—things so quiet that you’re not sure if they’re even there.

The words she sings have a similar weightlessness. They’re so gentle that you’re not sure you heard them right. When she concludes a verse with the lines “couldn’t tell for sure / where the screaming sound / was coming from,” the words feel like they’re evaporating before your eyes, so that all you’re left with is beauty and a lingering sense of the violence that permeated the line. “from” joins her previous singles as a resounding record of quietude, beautiful, brief and over before you know it.

Listen to “from” below, and check out Lenker’s tour schedule here. While you’re at it, watch Big Thief’s 2016 performance of “Real Love” at Daytrotter.