Big Thief’s James Krivchenia Announces New Solo Album Performing Belief

This morning, Big Thief drummer and producer James Krivchenia has announced his fourth solo album, Performing Belief. The release is set to arrive May 2 via Planet Mu and marks his first collaboration with the English electronic label. In promotion of the forthcoming LP, Krivchenia has shared its arithmetical lead single, “Probably Wizards.”

Referring to James Krivchenia solely as “the drummer of Big Thief” is a discredit to his breadth of talent more than anything else. Yes, he serves as the rhythmic backbone for one of the greatest indie folk bands of our generation, providing endless, visceral grooves from behind the kit, but his expertise extends far beyond the drum throne. He produced Big Thief’s 2022 album Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You, which received two Grammy nominations that year and took the #1 spot on our year-end best albums list as well.

Meanwhile, Krivchenia’s ear for percussion has remained at the forefront of his solo career, focusing on immersive, shape-shifting soundscapes that blend and obscure the line between the organic and the synthetic. In their review of Krivchenia’s last record, 2022’s Blood Karaoke, Matt Mitchell wrote that “Krivchenia’s sonic moveset is one of poetic, deliberate, skittering impulses, just like Big Thief’s. But Blood Karaoke takes his band’s curious, earthly blueprint and uses it to render a perfect composite of what our own phone-obsessed apocalypses could be beyond that: epileptic dancing on the edge of sharp, mangled, A.I.-generated thunderstorms.”

With Performing Belief, Krivchenia is once again in full sonic architect mode, layering dense percussive textures among synths, drum machines, and a wealth of self-gathered sounds. He’s joined by bassist Sam Wilkes (Wilkes/Gendel) and multi-instrumentalist Joshua Abrams (Natural Information Society) throughout the album’s eight-song tracklist, both of whom help sculpt the record’s uncharted, almost hallucinatory atmosphere.