In case you were wondering, DM Stith isn’t your standard singer / songwriter. As a member of Sufjan Stevens’ band during the Age Of Adz tour, you have to bring more than your A-game, which is exactly what DM Stith does. But if you dig deep into the musician, you’ll find it’s fascinatingly rich in music. His father is a college wind ensemble director and his grandfather, a professor emeritus in the music department at Cornell. His mother is a pianist while his sisters sing opera, tap dance, play the piano and timpani. It’s no surprise to find Stith delving into music.
After a slew of releases throughout the years, it’s been some time since any music was extracted from the artist. Until now that is. Today, Stith delivers “Staying Awake” (YK Records), premiering a song that isn’t an album cut or a lost b-side to a 7″ single. The 6-minute plus track is far removed from the norm as Stith extracts a variety of sound and fury to fit within the song itself, which moves in movements rather than fitting into a standard formulaic pop rendering. Stith’s composition is simply fascinating and leaves much to the imagination. After just one listen, you just might fall madly in love with Stith’s creativity.
Of the track, DM Stith says:
Staying Awake – a thesis statement for a new phase of recordings. Written after the end of Sufjan’s Age of Adz tour (I toured in his band and opened the shows with my own solo set), worked and reworked for the last 5 years, and finished, finally, with the help of Ben Hillier (rhythm and programming), Paul Wianko (string arrangement), Grey McMurray (guitar) and Shahzad Ismaily (mixing). The song was completed this spring on the Isle of Portland in Dorset where I’d parked myself for a couple of weeks of solitude, sea sounds and sporadic torrents of icy hail.
Social Media