搬運自：微信公眾號【評論搬一堆】（在原文基礎(chǔ)上添加了英語原文與排版調(diào)整）?

翻譯：Peter D

審譯：Lynn Liu

排版：Peter D

Big Thief are their own small ecosystem: Guitarist?Buck Meek, bassist Max Oleartchik, drummer James Krivchenia, and?Adrianne Lenker, the singer and oxygen of the Brooklyn quartet, whose lyrics can, among other things, bind all that is living and has ever lived together at the cellular level. Their music is a network of wood and wire, uncanny in its ability to sound undiscovered, like you’re stumbling upon a new species of folk rock with every song. And because they work so well as an organism, the band has a way of giving value to things that hang damp and wrinkled in our world. In the hands of Big Thief, emotion, dreams, nature, memory, even acoustic guitars are artifacts of immense size and power.

Big Thief這支樂隊本身就像是一個小小的生態(tài)系統(tǒng)：吉他手Buck Meek，貝斯手Max Oleartchik，鼓手James Krivchenia，以及主唱Adrianne Lenker，她是這支布魯克林四人樂隊賴以生存的氧氣，而她的歌詞便是把這個小生態(tài)系統(tǒng)中所有存在過的事物從細胞水平上緊緊聯(lián)系在一起的利器之一。他們的音樂就像是用木頭和鋼絲拉起來的圍欄網(wǎng)架，有著讓人聽起來總像是在聆聽未知音樂的奇妙力量，在聽每一首歌的時候就像偶然發(fā)現(xiàn)了一個全新的民謠搖滾流派。而也正是因為這支樂隊總能像是一個完整的有機體一樣完美配合，他們總能找到辦法讓那些在我們的生活中看起來破舊陰冷的東西熠熠生輝。在Big Thief的手中，無論是情感、夢想，還是回憶，甚至是木吉他，都變成了由他們自己所創(chuàng)造的大尺寸且蘊含能量的事物。

This power that Big Thief give to the natural (and supernatural) defines their third and undoubtedly best album,?U.F.O.F., a mesmerizing flood of life filtered down into a concentrated drip. It’s weird in the literary?new weird?sense: fantastical, alien; it is an unknown presence. Spend time with this album and soon there is no tempo but Big Thief’s trot, no voice but Lenker’s whisper, you are in a now-but-then, a here-but-there. Guitar lines are Mobius strips, basslines lead you off the map, and the drums feel less like Krivchenia is hitting them and more like he is lifting sounds out of them. A dazzling record, no doubt, but the boundless joy comes from its glacial restraint, from sensing all that lies beneath its surface and all that goes unsung.

這種Big Thief賦予自然（和超自然）事物的力量決定了他們的第三張專輯——毫無疑問也是最好的專輯——《U.F.O.F.》就是把迷人的生命洪流濃縮成了精制的一滴。專輯給人以文學上“新怪誕主義”的怪異感：既夢幻，又陌生；像是一種完全未知的存在。聆聽這張專輯，很快，除了Big Thief的節(jié)奏，你聽不見任何節(jié)拍；除了Lenker的低語，你聽不見任何聲音，你既處于現(xiàn)在，又身處未來；既在這里，又漂流到無邊無際之所。吉他聲如莫比烏斯環(huán)無始無終，貝司聲引你去向無名之處，鼓聲聽起來甚至不像是Krivchenia在打鼓，而是把聲音從鼓中升華。毫無疑問，這是一張炫目的專輯，但是就像那些海面之下的冰川，那些表層以下、那些沒有直接唱出來的部分，能給我們帶來無邊無際的快樂。

The mystery of?U.F.O.F.?comes in part from Lenker’s lonely and elliptical verse, like Emily Dickinson if she picked up a copy of?Court and Spark. The darkness that defined Big Thief’s first two albums—the abuse and stalkers on 2016’s?Masterpiece, the trauma and railroad spikes to the skull on 2017’s?Capacity—has either evaporated or taken refuge deep in the subtext. What were once vivid scenes Between lovers, mothers, and children are now rendered more dreamlike and misty, as if observed in the distance through an attic window. On the title track, seasons bend and maps turn blue, as Lenker waves goodbye to her “UFO friend” and sings that the best kiss she ever had was the “flickering of water so clear and so bright,” an image so indelible she revisits the “kiss of water” a few songs later. There are few greater pleasures than following Lenker’s pen to her places of solitude.

《U.F.O.F.》的神秘一部分來自于Lenker孤獨又隱晦的唱段，仿佛Emily Dickinson（譯者注：美國著名女詩人）看到了《Court and Spark》（譯者注：美國著名女唱作歌手Joni Mitchell的專輯）。定義了Big Thief前兩張專輯的黑暗元素——2016年的《Masterpiece》中的虐待與跟蹤，2017年的《Capacity》中的創(chuàng)痛和頭骨中的生銹道釘——現(xiàn)在已化為烏有，或是深深藏匿在弦外之音里。那些曾經(jīng)栩栩如生的戀人們、母親們與孩子們之間的場景現(xiàn)在被以更虛無縹緲的方式傳達，就好像是從很遠的閣樓上的窗戶中望見的。在專輯同名曲中，季節(jié)扭轉(zhuǎn)，地圖變藍，Lenker向著她的“UFO friend（外星朋友）”揮手告別，并唱到她曾有過的最美好的吻，是“水中的閃光，那么清澈，那么明亮”；這幅圖像留下的記憶太過深刻，于是她在幾首歌后再次回顧了這“水之吻”。幾乎沒有什么比跟隨著Lenker的筆走進她的獨處之地更讓人感到愉悅了。

In keeping with tradition, Lenker populates her songs with people, avatars, or named vessels for parts of her personality: Jodi, Betsy, Jenni, Violet, Caroline. But more verdant on?U.F.O.F.?are the creatures that surround them: circling doves and lonesome loons, worms and robins, fruit bats and flies, recurring motifs of the silkworm and the moth. Lenker’s writing suggests a vast consciousness, a direct line Between the inner self and the outer world. On “Orange,” hound dogs crow and pigeons fall like snowflakes, but the surreal places she travels only end back at a place of raw emotional clarity—the fragile orange wind, the flesh crying rivers on her forearm—all of it comes back to the chorus: “Lies, lies, lies in her eyes.” Her lyrics, so exquisitely drawn, could make permanent the bond Between heartbreak and a blade of grass.

順應(yīng)傳統(tǒng)，Lenker把她的音樂聚焦于人，化身，或是自己的起了名字的不同人格——Jodi, Betsy, Jenni, Violet, Caroline。但《U.F.O.F.》中更新鮮的是圍繞著的生物：盤旋的白鴿，形單影只的潛鳥，蠕蟲，知更鳥，果蝠，果蠅，反復出現(xiàn)的蠶與飛蛾的主題。Lenker的詞展示了一片廣闊的意識境界，那是自我內(nèi)心和外部世界的一條明確界限。在“Orange（橘色）”中，獵狗狂吠，鴿子如雪花般墜落，但她所去的這些超現(xiàn)實之地最終又回到了一片純粹又真摯的情感之中——脆弱的橙色微風，前臂像眼淚一樣流出的鮮血——一切都歸于副歌：“謊言，謊言，她的眼中盡是謊言?！?strong>她的歌詞有著驚人的聯(lián)想力，足以把心痛和一片碎玻璃永久地聯(lián)系在一起。

For every color Lenker evokes on?U.F.O.F.—auburn hair, black eyes, and turquoise lungs—the band provides a lush backdrop. It is clear that Big Thief perform with a governor, their Berklee training muffled beneath the creaky, simple melodies of folk music. Fleshed out by the band are two songs from Lenker’s 2018 solo album?abysskiss, “From” and “Terminal Paradise.” The former is given depth by a hypnotic drum part from Krivchenia, the latter enhanced by Meek, who adds baritone harmony to Lenker’s reinvigorated vocal performance. Meek’s electric guitar work on the album is just alluring, especially the arcing feedback he adds to the show-stopping “Jenni,” which is, in fact, exactly what a big strobe-light shoegaze jam would sound like if it were made by forest elves.

對于Lenker在《U.F.O.F.》中喚起的每一種顏色——紅褐色的頭發(fā)，黑色的眼睛，青綠色的肺——樂隊都提供了一張豐富的背景幕布。很顯然，Big Thief的表現(xiàn)是有指揮的，他們在伯克利中的訓練被壓抑在那吱呀作響的簡單民謠旋律中。由樂隊充實的兩首歌曲 “From”和“Terminal Paradise”來自Lenker2018年的個人專輯《abysskiss》。其中前一首由于Krivchenia的催眠式鼓點的加入而更具深度，后一首則因為Meek把男中音和聲加進了令人振奮的Lenker的演唱，而被拔高了。Meek在專輯中的電吉他就是那么的迷人，尤其是在專輯即將結(jié)束的“Jenni”一曲中，他加入的電弧反饋效果，事實上如果盯鞋派音樂（Shoegaze）中的巨大閃光交給森林里的小精靈來完成，聽起來就會是這個樣子。

Some of these nearly imperceptible moments are the album’s best, a production flourish or a small crescendo that flicker like a shoal of fish. If you’ll bear with me on the comparison, it reminds of?Radiohead?at their most intimate, on 2007’s?In Rainbows. The interlocking compositions, the points and counterpoints made by Meek, Lenker, Oleartchik, and Krivchenia have the same elegance of design. But the contraction and expansion of a Radiohead song—the way it leads to somewhere?big—is contrasted by Big Thief’s subtle turns they breathe into their arrangements. The feedback hum that leads into the final chorus of “U.F.O.F” or the cluster of harmonies that creep in at the end of “Strange” are more like occurrences or phenomenons, things you rush to capture with your phone but before you get it out of your pocket they’re gone.

一些幾乎是完全出人意料的時刻是這張專輯最出彩之處，像是一個制作上的花飾，或是一個像魚群一樣閃過的漸強音。如果你能容忍我的比較，這簡直可以讓Radiohead想起他們最親密的那些日子，也就是2007年的《In Rainbows》。那些由Meek，Lenker，Oleartchik和Krivchenia完成的緊密關(guān)聯(lián)的架構(gòu)、曲調(diào)以及復調(diào)有著相同的設(shè)計上的優(yōu)雅。但是Radiohead歌曲中的收縮與擴張——也是這些歌曲因我們走向更廣闊空間的方式——與Big Thief在編曲中悄悄布置的微妙轉(zhuǎn)向形成了鮮明對比。不管是引入“U.F.O.F” 最后一段副歌的電器反饋雜音還是“Strange”結(jié)尾處潛入的一大堆和聲，都更像是那種偶然現(xiàn)象，你急急忙忙想要用手機抓住這個畫面，可是你還沒掏出手機，它們就溜走了。

It’s hard to put a finger on the exact essence of?U.F.O.F. though that is part and parcel its majesty. When I think about Big Thief, I think about “deep ecology,” an environmental philosophy dating back to the 1970s that believes the value of nature is not dependent on how useful it is for human life.?U.F.O.F.?revels in this, an ancient system of great worth still whirring and rustling along, unbidden to the needs of our world.

你很難指出《U.F.O.F.》的確切本質(zhì)，雖然這就是其莊嚴的重要組成。想到Big Thief，我就很容易聯(lián)想到“深入生態(tài)學(Deep Ecology)”，一種可以追溯到19世紀70年代的環(huán)境哲學，其相信自然的價值并不在于它對人類的用處?！禪.F.O.F.》沉醉于此，這一古老的偉大價值體系，一邊呼呼作響，一邊也由于對我們的世界無用而生銹衰敗。

There’s also the work of the naturalist writer Rachel Carson, who, in 1941, wrote what it feels like to listen to this album when she wrote about the ocean from its shore: “To stand at the edge of the sea, to sense the ebb and the flow of the tides, to feel the breath of a mist moving over a great salt marsh, to watch the flight of shore birds that have swept up and down the surf lines of the continents for untold thousands of years … is to have knowledge of things that are as nearly eternal as any earthly life can be.” The name?U.F.O.F.?suggests a connection to the unknown?both within and without, and when Lenker sings of being called through a portal on “Jenni,” she beckons you, too.

博物學作家Rachel Carson的作品或許可以描述聽這張專輯時的感受，她站在海岸上面對大海，寫道：“站在大海的邊緣，感受潮水退去、涌動，感受薄霧掠過巨大鹽湖時的吐息，看著海鳥們在海岸線上下飛翔不知幾千年……就是去了解那些像任何地球生命一樣幾乎是永恒的事物?！?/strong>專輯名《U.F.O.F.》便暗示著那些未知之間從內(nèi)至外的聯(lián)系，而當Lenker在 “Jenni”的開頭唱到自己被召喚時，她也在召喚你。