SXSW SHOWS CONFIRMED
Heavy Ghost, the debut album from DM Stith, cast an almost supernatural effect on reviewers and fans when it was released in March of 2009. Both groups acclaimed it as a stunning debut unlike anything else they had heard. NPR called the LP “complex… [containing] inventive songs,” while Entertainment Weekly proclaimed it “one of the strongest debut albums I’ve heard.” Stith’s peers received it well too: Ed Droste of Grizzly Bear twittered about it calling it a “lovely album,” and Bat for Lashes picked Heavy Ghost for her New York Times Playlist, saying “It traverses all these magical landscapes… almost like Alice through the looking glass. Like you’re being sucked into a secret world.”
Heavy Ghost Appendices, which comes out May 25 on Asthmatic Kitty, revisits this secret world and adds to its cartography a series of hidden coves, unexplored forests, and new landscapes. Heavy Ghost was also mystifying and intertwined to David when he wrote it; the Appendices are a means to sort the thing out in his mind. They physically collect the digital trilogy of EPs released over the course of the summer and fall of 2009 into a beautifully packaged limited edition double-disc set. The EPs were an exercise in exploring the boundaries of the music contained on Heavy Ghost, revisiting songs, reinterpreting, and displaying some inspiration and influences through covers of other artists. The remixes helped provide new context and deconstruction of his songs in a way that unearthed the songs’ roles and relationships to one another.
Stith will appear at South by Southwest this year; summer tour dates will be announced shortly. Please see below for SXSW shows.
The two discs are divided between the covers/reworkings and the remixes. The first disc includes an astonishing rendition of Randy Newman’s “Suzanne” and a David Lynch-esque version of the The Ronettes “Be My Baby.” There is a serene tenderness in Stith’s cover of David Byrne’s “A Soft Seduction” while he turns Diane Cluck’s “Easy To Be Around” into a menacing overture. Included are also new renditions of his own songs including “Around the Lion Legs,” the marching band gut punch of a re-envisioned “Pigs,” as well as a collaboration with label-mates I Heart Lung turning “Wig” into an ambient free jazz swirling haze.
The remix disc offers up myriad interpretations from some of electronic music’s most distinct voices, along with a smokey jazz version of “Thanksgiving Moon” by Dayna Kurtz. Michna provides a tropical dance remix, Rafter turns “Thanksgiving Moon” into a doombeat terror, Roberto Carlos Lange (Savath & Savalas, Helado Negro, Prefuse 73) infuses “BMB” with latin experimentation, while Son Lux interprets the same song with a unique sort of polka glitch. Bibio’s remix of “Abraham's Song” takes Stith’s voice into the realm of saturated electro-acoustics while FatCat glitch artist and Bjork collaborator, Ensemble, and Warp recording artist Clark offer their own unique approach to Stith’s music both reworking “Braid of Voices.” The Appendices also includes the expansive 11-minute shoegaze electronics of Actuel.
For such a strange young voice, 2009 was a wild and beautiful year and this new collection provides a reflective compendium to Stith’s debut album.
Tracklisting
CD 1
1. Lacuna A - 2:45
2. BMB (Demo) - 3:22
3. Easy To Be Around (Diane Cluck Cover) - 6:05
4. Pigs (featuring Jefferson Street Band) - 5:10
5. Around The Lion Legs (Slow Dance Version) - 4:39
6. Lacuna B - 2:39
7. Thanksgiving Moon (Demo) - 3:13
8. A Soft Seduction (David Byrne Cover) - 3:22
9. Suzanne (Randy Newman Cover) - 4:01
10. Be My Baby (Ronette's Cover) - 4:15
11. Braid of Voices (Brass Version) - 3:43
12. I Heart Wig (featuring I Heart Lung) - 6:55
CD 2
1. In My Dreams, I Watch TV (Braid of Voices Remix by Ensemble) - 4:15
2. Thanksgiving Moon (Michna Remix) - 4:17
3. BMB (Roberto C. Lange Remix) - 3:36
4. BMB (Son Lux Remix) - 5:33
5. Braid of Voices (Clark Remix) - 5:26
6. Thanksgiving Moon (Rafter Remix) - 3:53
7. Abraham's Song (Bibio Remix) - 4:25
8. Thanksgiving Moon (Cover by Dayna Kurtz) - 4:09
9. Lacuna C - 4:45
10. Pity Dance (Actuel Remix) - 11:30
SXSW APPEARANCES
Wednesday, 3/17 at 1:00 A.M.
St. David’s Bethell Hall (301 E. 8th St)
All Ages
Thursday, 3/18 at 3:30 P.M.
Spider House (2908 Fruth St. at Guadalupe)
BrooklynVegan & AnSo Present Day Party! w/ Odawas, A Sunny Day in Glasgow,
Thee Oh Sees and more
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