Phoebe Bridgers has officially returned to solo album territory with Lost Weekend, a sprawling 16-track project that brings some familiar friends and an impressively long list of collaborators along for the ride.
The album is Bridgers’ third solo full-length and her first since Punisher in 2020. It also marks her biggest collection of new solo material since “Sidelines” arrived in 2022.
If six years between albums created expectations, Bridgers certainly did not respond by keeping things small.
Lost Weekend features a production team that repeatedly brings together Bridgers, Tony Berg, Ethan Gruska, Jack Antonoff and Alex G. Across the album, the credits expand considerably from there, pulling musicians and songwriters from several corners of the indie and alternative music worlds into Bridgers’ orbit.
Her boygenius bandmates Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker contribute vocals to “Lost Boys” and “Haunted.” The record also features contributions from Conor Oberst, Blake Mills, Christian Lee Hutson, Caroline Shaw, Chris Thile, Nickel Creek, Rob Moose and Bo Burnham, among many others.
The sheer variety of instruments involved gives an indication of the album’s scale. Acoustic and electric guitars sit alongside strings, pedal steel, synthesizers, mandolin, banjo, horns, church organ and vocoders. The title track even incorporates a sample of electronic composer Paul Lansky’s “Notjustmoreidlechatter.”
Some of the credits are considerably more personal. Bridgers’ brother Jackson contributes vocals to “Kill Me,” while her pug Maxine receives a vocal credit on the album-closing “Lost Weekend (Reprise).” It is not every major release that leaves room in the liner notes for the family dog.
The road to Lost Weekend was similarly unconventional. Bridgers built anticipation through pop-up performances and listening events held at planetariums around the world. She also staged a phones-free charity performance at Madison Square Garden, turning the album campaign into something considerably more elaborate than the standard sequence of singles and announcements.
Now that the album has arrived, the focus will eventually shift from the studio to the road. Bridgers is set to tour North America and Europe in support of Lost Weekend next year, with Alex G joining the North American dates and former Black Country, New Road singer Isaac Wood supporting the European shows.
After a lengthy gap between solo albums, Bridgers has returned with a record whose credits read almost like a map of her musical world. Lost Weekend may carry one artist’s name on the cover, but the people behind it make clear that this particular weekend had a very crowded guest list.
