A guitar, for all of music’s digital potential, is still an endless excitement to Adrianne; it’s an example of that thing that, she says, can expand time. As the companion release to songs, instrumentals is the first time her craft has really been explored and recorded as a separate entity to her voice. Two pieces of music, ‘music for indigo’ and ‘mostly chimes’, were created amid the ritual of starting and closing the days with improvised acoustic guitar. “Really, it’s been a part of my musicality since I was really little,” she says. “Even before singing, guitar has always been this place of comfort for me, and I think it’s easy to place a lot of significance on a part of yourself – like, ‘this is my expertise, this is my craft’. Writing songs has been something I’ve worked on and tried to refine over the course of many years, so much of my thoughts and my brain is in it, but playing guitar, noodling around and not choosing a direction, and not judging it or putting weight on it – that in a way has been a part of me that I wouldn’t have ever chosen to capture or present before, because I wasn’t bringing any significance to it.” Even now there’s a little focus on it, she doesn’t want these songs to be anything more than white noise, pieces to warmly accompany you in a room, whenever you’d like them to. “The guitar is a really a deep world that, certainly I will die having not explored nearly everything there is to explore in it. The subtleties and the options, all the different roads you can take and it’s all in your fingers, it’s all in your hands. I love the wood, it’s like a gift given by these trees. Or, it’s taken from the trees, really,” she laughs. “Like, the guitar I play on the record, I got when I was 14 and it was my only instrument up until I got my first electric guitar that I play with Big Thief. I’ve had it for 15 years, and it’s changed shape all through those years, moving and contracting. Like, what will that thing feel like in another 15 years? What will my relationship with it be? Also, you play a chord and put your ear up to the side, it just fills your whole body with vibration and resonance. I like that you can kind of do anything on there without consequence. Like, if you’re sitting by yourself, you can put your finger on any string, on any fret, play any note, and there’s no negative consequence. “Think of that feeling when you’re falling in something,” she says, returning to her earlier sentiment. “You’re falling in love, or you’re just completely absorbed in a sensation or moment or instrument, similar to when you’re taking a camera to focus on something. You see it first, and then take the time to see it. Falling in love is this involuntary jolt of presence, but presence is generally so hard to exercise on things. You can do that with yourself in nature and your own internal world, but it’s a lot harder. Whereas when someone else triggers it, with that person you can bring this part of yourself to attention that otherwise is sleeping. That focus and that power of attention… like when you’re a child,” she laughs, “or if you’re a dog. You can see that one thing is all they want. “You just need to witness something rather than change it,” she says, “rather than alter it or integrate it into yourself.” Her voice trails off again in thought, similar in all but sound to that slow squeak when you first wake up and try to calibrate yourself. “Sorry,” she says, “I forgot the question. I was focused on something.”
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