I have it all figured out

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[ihaveitallfiguredout]

Dear David, so glad to know there's new music coming from you! But: Will there be a physical release? As an old/old-school guy, I really detest DL/streaming... Best, Michael from Germany

Yes! There will be vinyl. We're finalizing details on that now.

[ihaveitallfiguredout]

"Doomed!", the first single from my upcoming album, "Fata Morgana", is now released worldwide! Follow the link below to stream it on your favorite service: https://orcd.co/dmsdoomed -OR- preorder the album on Bandcamp, and receive the single immediately: https://dmstith.bandcamp.com/album/fata-morgana Either way, way to go team! Produced with Thomas Bartlett Some percussion by Thor Harris Mixed by Thomas Bartlett Mastered by Fritz Myers Photography by Grace Walker Released by Historical Fiction Records Fata Morgana is due April 14

[ihaveitallfiguredout]

SO HAPPY to announce my first new album in a little while: “Fata Morgana” will be released on April 14 by @histficrecs That’s a couple months from now, but we’ll give you some appetizers in the meantime. For now, just relax, take in the beauty of my blurry blurry face (thanks to @groovygracee for the cover and press photos!) and if you’re feeling antsy to express your joy, skip over to my bandcamp page and buy something! Fata Morgana by DM Stith Co-Produced and mixed by Thomas Bartlett Mastered by Fritz Myers Released by Historical Fiction Records April 14, 2023 (at Rochester, New York) https://www.instagram.com/p/CoNNth3OjAu/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[ihaveitallfiguredout]

Did you do the art for Mary Halvorson latest record?

I did indeed! The actual covers for the albums (and the special edition) are composites, so they don’t exist in the physical world the way they look on the albums. But I will be selling pieces made for the music videos and process pieces at some point in the next couple months. Follow me on instagram at @vermeerier and @dmstith to find out more :)

[ihaveitallfiguredout]

LONDON: Saturday 2nd of April, 2022 @KingsPlace | Tickets on sale now at www.kingsplace.co.uk (at Kings Place) https://www.instagram.com/p/CVNxxItFU_R/?utm_medium=tumblr

[ihaveitallfiguredout]

Moving back to Rochester for this. Puppy brought to you by @brainthought and @evenminusodd Hammock courtesy @meredith2680 special thanks to Lake Ontario for the water. https://www.instagram.com/p/CTuVdmSLPKf/?utm_medium=tumblr

[ihaveitallfiguredout]

Spring is springing! Here is the 3rd installment of the Waving video series. This is the first in the series to be directed/captured by someone else – French filmmaker Frederic Tcheng gives us a bee's eye view of the natural world. "Waving 3" by DM Stith strings by Paul Wiancko from the album "Waving 1-4" Directed by Frédéric Tcheng Filmed in Hidden Meadow, North Cascades National Park, WA August 2020 Thank you: Owen Calm Wright

[ihaveitallfiguredout]

Free show — Tuesday Nov 17 (tonight) at 8pm (New York Time) with special guest @tingalayo thanks to @joespub. Hope you’ll be able to stop by! Link in bio. https://www.instagram.com/p/CHsnXcClroV/?igshid=192odcom2jb7c

[ihaveitallfiguredout]

FREE virtual concert event, in collaboration with Joe's Pub Live. Tuesday, November 17, 8pm ET https://publictheater.org/productions/joes-pub/2020/j/dm-stith---joes-pub-live/

[ihaveitallfiguredout]

Hey Y’all! I’m stepping away from Instagram and Twitter and the like for the next month so I can focus on some creative projects. I’m feeling healthy and loved and all that, so no need to worry! Meantime, if you need to contact me about music stuff, book me for the 2021 Super Bowl halftime show, put one of my songs in a cola cola commercial or ask me to star in your quirky rom com, plz email me at dmstith(dot)online(at)gmail(dot)com Be good! See you in a bit. 😘 https://www.instagram.com/p/CFkBIESjSxl/?igshid=wpbah4oi2ymh

[ihaveitallfiguredout]

A Dream:

Another meandering interior dream... seems like I never dream of the outdoors, but always this labyrinthine windowless complex like giant malls or the basements of all the churches and all the back-stage corridors I’ve ever been in sewn together, stacked on top of one another, sometimes seamlessly and sometimes in such a haphazard way that I find myself scaling a wall to reach a door. But these mazes are only ever the backdrop to some other drama. At times the dream-mazes are a source of joy, leading a friend through the tunnels with a sense of knowing, a sense of belonging to the maze... the kind of gentle familiarity I feel when visiting a city for the third or fourth time, aware that the body has stored some knowledge of the place without my intention. Last night’s dream I dwelled as much in a feeling as in that place. The maze seemed obsurd to me (and this is rarely the case) while the emotional temperature of the place felt like my neighborhood. To the point: in the dream I am with successful creative friends — the people I tend to measure myself against, measure my success against — the sort of people who are professional minglers, who make small talk look easy, who can spin gold from any conversation with a gallery director, theatre programmer, venue director etc. I run into these folks and am greeted warmly with handsome smiling faces, invited to dinner and told to follow them through the labyrinth. Despite following at pace they are soon out of sight, and when eventually I turn a corner into a large packed restaurant, I see my party already halfway through a meal, deep in conversation with each other. I manage to make eye contact with one party member who has a bowl of escargot steaming in front of her — she asks if I’d like some and I hesitate bashfully, already feeling the pang of being avoided. And here’s that feeling. The next moment of the dream seems to encompass a hundred different experiences — my life’s memories reorganize themselves into a catalog of little rejections. Approaching a group one moment, the next they’ve disappeared, or im invited to a table that empties a moment later.

The dream continues — I’m following one of these friends again through the labyrinth as she shows me an art installation that climbs up a wall, some geometric flowers. She leads me through an electronics shop where I remember I need to pick up a part, and in this moment of shifted focus she disappears. I run out of the store looking for her and the labyrinth seems to’ve shut down. The lights are out. The echo of metal grates slid shut. I head upwards on the hunt for natural light — a notion that people move upwards after things close down — and this involves climbing several stairs that ribbon and weave around one another. And in fact there is light above. In my climb I hear my mother’s voice and see her in a room beyond an atrium. In order to reach her I keep climbing these stairs but attempt to keep her in sight as I navigate, calling out to her as I go. She is now below me in what looks like a classroom standing at a desk speaking with someone. At the top of the stairs it is again dark — the light seems to be below me now. Three men sit at the top of the stairs chatting. I move past them carefully looking for a way down on the other side of this open space — the light is coming from a room three floors down casting strange shadows from the staircase. The men wander away and I feel stuck in this high place.

I’m interested in the designing process of dreams — this one in particular feels like the building bubbled up out of this feeling of isolation or rejection. It’s funny. I’ve always really loved empty corridors and rooms like this — in college I would often take walks through the art department at night to get fresh perspective on my work. I’d sometime wander over to the music building, which was also open at night, and play piano in the dark there, or sit in quiet and look out over the campus. Between semesters I sometimes worked as a custodian at a local highschool which brought all sorts of peace, and my favorite part of my recent stint at the Metropolitan Museum was wandering through the empty unlit galleries before opening hours. These empty spaces have always been a comfort. Emptied of people, their design is laid bare — so it strikes me that my dreams combine this familiar disconnection as both comfort and anxiety. As though my two greatest needs, the comfort of camaraderie and creative fulfillment, are at odds with one another.

I’m sitting with this feeling now, in an armchair in an empty house. There’s a highway nearby that howls with traffic morning noon and night.

[ihaveitallfiguredout]

Twirl with me into Fall. I present to you the second video from "Waving 1-4" featuring a fireman's pole, friend from Brooklyn, cornstalks and wild grass. Love to you from upstate somewhere. -DM

[ihaveitallfiguredout]

The last few copies of the special edition Double LP of Heavy Ghost, my first album, have been found and are now up on my bandcamp page for sale.

Here’s a link: https://dmstith.bandcamp.com/album/heavy-ghost

This also comes with my very first EP, Curtain Speech, on the 4th side of the LP as well as an oversized 12-page booklet of paintings I made for the release. That album sounds best on vinyl so I’m eager to get these to people who already know the album. Go get em!

More news soon,

DM

[ihaveitallfiguredout]

My friends in @roomfulofteeth asked me to create original cover artwork for 2 incredible EPs of new music. Happy to announce these are now available for you to see/hear! Go find Michael Harrison’s “Just Constellations” and Wally Gunn’s “The Ascendant” now via @newammusic 🖤 Note: the cover of The Ascendant features a photo by @charliefwelch that I painted ghost mountains into. The Just Constellations cover is an original painting/collage. Note #2: both EPs are GEEEEORGEOUS and deserve your attention!! Note #3: huge thanks to @bcarterwells and the roomful folks for being such great collaborators over the years. I’ve had the pleasure of contributing cover artwork for every one of their albums, and it’s one of those projects that I just feel so gosh darn lucky to’ve been involved in. Big thanks to @newammusic @sarahkirklandsnider @juddgreenstein and @wbrittelle for introducing us and providing a platform for these collaborations. 🎈 (at Williamsville, New York) https://www.instagram.com/p/CEKM7C8jZZ7/?igshid=1wdob9r3h9guk

[ihaveitallfiguredout]

Low — Silver Rider

Weightless.

[ihaveitallfiguredout]

Waving 1-4 is now available on all streaming services.

[ihaveitallfiguredout]

When I Recall My Dreams

Why am I always escaping from New York City? I've lived in seven different apartments in Brooklyn over the last 15 years, and left the city altogether 3 times. Each stretch has been punctuated by only fleeting bursts of contentment there, rare as a rainbow, that sense that maybe the knots in my story are working themselves out. Maybe I'd be better asking myself what brings me to New York City in the first place.

Right now I miss a lot of things. Writing about it is embarassingly rote at this point. I smirk at myself as I type. my god I'm rolling my eyes. But I do, I miss things. I'm all turned around by this new crippled economy, by the empty perfomance halls, canceled tour plans, and email silence from collaborators that just 4 months ago were a chatter of clattering potential, quick as a woodpeckers racket, now throbbing with silence.

This sort of transitory space between social activity and private inquiry has always been an unwelcome part of my work. Art has always been the narrow bridge between my natural inclination to isolate, and the terror of collaborating. I am more creative when left to work in tandem to someone else's project, side by side rather than head-on. I grew up doing my best drawings on the blank sides of bulletin inserts, slouched in a pew during church, or on the floor of an auditorium with my legos all spilled out around me while my father or one of my sisters rehearsed for a performance. This was how I found that higher frequency: safety in the shadow of others; safety in the spaces in-between.

I've spent the last couple weeks with family near Buffalo. We own a little cottage on a tiny lake formed by the same glacial forces that dug out the finger lakes further to the East. This lake is charming until your doggy paddle is ensnared in a forest of weeds not more than a foot under the surface of the water. The lake is best experienced from on top of the water, preferrably in a kayak or row boat.

Still, despite its limitations, the value of this place is undeniable. Presently, this little cabin is allowing me a little time to experiment with the notion of leaving the city for a while. Yesterday I drove around the countryside in my parents' car hoping a piece of inconspicuous property would call out to me. Landscape has always been my oracle. Particularly now, after 7+ years living in close quarters with 9 other people, in the heart of an industrial neighborhood in Brooklyn, I'm looking to the natural world to guide me back out again. I'm looking for permission to put up some walls around this intention of mine, to claim a part of myself, plant it in the world, to let my value speak, resound, arrive.

My dreams have been saying as much for months now, though I hadn't until this week taken them at face value. I scribbled this down mid-march after one such bright dream: "walking a long path through trees through the primeval, through eon, through bedrock and infinity, through vibration, through time, through beginnings, through collectings, through expansion, through decay, through story linked to story buried in story, tombs of tombs of time excavating and reburying in the sister sludge of its own birth, generation and spawn, stomp, echo, obliteration. grace. I built a house but first a lean-to in the trees, then a house in the clearing, hugging the shade of a small glade of poplars, not far from the forest edge, the great forest edge, the forest that runs the whole flat edge of this coast. In planning the house, I devise rooms without use, intending to finish them last, to leave a space devoted to expansion, devoted to change and chance, to the expansion of effort, to the expansion of responsibility, to purpose, to question. These rooms are scattered about. The room behind the pantry hallway, the little gap between the kitchen and shelves of storage, that room has lovely windows over the back patio. The heart-shaped room beyond the living room, with the spine of the back stairs cutting into its shape to create those two separate nooks at its wider end. The long room between the heart-shaped room and the mud room and side entrance. The upside down house. The house built around a trajectory. The house intends to move. The house is a vessel for potential. The house is not a tomb..."

I've been collecting ideas for such a house, and so far the only room I'm seeing very clearly is the mud-room. In fact, my drawings have given half of the footprint to this transitional room: a polished concrete floor, a reflecting pool positioned to slow one down, to allow the space between to make an impression. Or to allow the house a moment to savor its meal before swallowing.