Bleep

Big Thief drummer James Krivchenia makes his solo debut on the Planet Mu label with a new LP entitled Performing Belief. Much like 2022’s Blood Karaoke, Krivchenia builds rich musical tapestries largely from disparate audio samples here, but he trades deep-dive YouTube videos and other digital detritus for a bank of field recordings collected over his many travels with the band across the world. Tapping on logs, skipping rocks across the ocean, tap-dancing in mud, these are the building blocks of Performing Belief, which were then reshaped and reconfigured by Krivchenia and his collaborators in Sam Wilkes and Joshua Abrams, two titans of experimental electronica. Percussion plays a large role in these tracks, as Krivcehnia and company almost seem to build a drum kit in the aggregate from these natural sounds, making for one most bucolic releases on the storied label.