- Release Info -------------------------------------------------------------- -
Artist: DM Stith
Album: BMB
Label: Asthmatic Kitty
Playtime: 28:29 min
Genre: Indie
URL: www.asthmatickitty.com
Rip date: 2009-07-01
Street date: 2009-07-07
Size: 38.46 MB
Type: Normal
Quality: 178 kbps / 4410kHz / Joint Stereo
- Release Notes ------------------------------------------------------------- -
Heavy Ghost, the debut album from DM Stith, had an almost supernatural effect
when it was released in March of 2009. Reviewers and fans alike acclaimed it
as a stunning debut unlike anything else they'd heard in a while. Stith's
peers received it just as well: Ed Droste of Grizzly Bear twittered about it
calling it a "lovely album," and Bat for Lashes picked it for her New York
Times playlist, saying ôIt traverses all these magical landscapesà almost
like Alice through the looking glass. Like youÆre being sucked into a secret
world."
Now, Stith returns with BMB, a seven song release and the first in a trilogy
of EPÆs to be released before the end of the year. The version of "BMB" found
on this EP is slower than the version on Heavy Ghost. It is starker, almost
skeletal in the way it reveals the turning gears of the song. In it, Stith's
reverb drenched vocals drift over a leading soft piano, ghostly choral
chants, and the occasional whisper. Where the Heavy Ghost version of "BMB" is
a tease into a mid-album lacuna, a transition for the albums themes of waking
dreams and spiritual torment, this original resolves more like a traditional
pop song, even using some of the most centrally canonical lyrics of the love
ballad ôbe my babyàö It is kind of a hopeless love song - no doubt, a boon
for Stith fans.
It is fitting then, that Stith covers a track by the same name: The Ronettes
"Be My Baby." Shedding the original's famous backing vocals in favor of a
minimal melody, StithÆs trademark falsetto is full of longing and relentless
desire, converting the classic 60s pop song into music that could easily
soundtrack a David Lynch dream sequence; a brave yet beautiful homage.
From one obsessive love song to another, the EP also contains an astonishing
rendition of Randy NewmanÆs "Suzanne" (from 12 Songs). If anything, and this
is a bold claim given NewmanÆs formidable career, Stith has amplified the
song's sense of the stalker. In the hands of Stith, "Suzanne" becomes a truly
ominous creature: ôAnd when you go to the pictures/And I know you do/DonÆt
take no one with you/Cause IÆll be there tooö.
Completing the seven tracks alongside a new rendition of "Around the Lion
Legs" and "Untitled," the EP's finale, are two remixes of "BMB." Occasional
Prefuse 73 collaborator Roberto Carlos Lange infuses the song with
experi-latin, and Son Lux (himself recently championed by Nico Muhly)
interprets the song with a wary sense of distance and ritual.
- Track List ---------------------------------------------------------------- -
01. BMB (Demo) ( 3:21)
02. Around The Lion Legs (Slow Dance Version) ( 4:38)
03. BMB (Roberto C. Lange Remix) ( 3:37)
04. BMB (Son Lux Remix) ( 5:35)
05. Suzanne (Randy Newman Cover) ( 4:01)
06. Be My Baby (Ronettes Cover) ( 4:25)
07. Untitled ( 2:52)
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -