Big Thief Launches Free Live Archive With 10 Concerts

Big Thief has launched a free online archive of live recordings, opening with 10 full concerts and tools that let listeners build playlists from performances across the collection. The band said it plans to add a new show on the second Tuesday of each month, though the schedule is a stated intention. The archive brings together recordings from different periods of the band’s career. Listeners can select tracks from the concerts and create their own playlists, while the full performances are available to stream without charge. Big Thief said it began recording all its shows around 2019 and spent the past couple of years developing the website. In its launch statement, the band described the project as a way to preserve the changing character of its performances, noting that songs can sound different from one night to another. The initial recordings were captured by the band’s front-of-house engineer Alice Wilder and monitor engineer Aleda Deroche. Fabian Prynn, an in-house engineer at 4AD, mixed them. The archive’s approach was inspired in part by drummer James Krivchenia’s interest in live releases by the Grateful Dead.