Flowers & Monks

by DM Stith

Dodges and Feints Video release: April 19th

Flowers & Monks EP release: May 3rd

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A year after Fata Morgana was released, DM Stith looks back at a special moment in his writing life, his song-writing settling into a classic confidence. His third solo album, and first working with producer Thomas Bartlett (Yoko Ono, Florence + the Machine, St. Vincent) reveals a confident songwriter, grounded yet still authentically mystic. 

In the words of Michael Stipe, “DM Stith whispers with hypnotic, bone-deep authenticity, somewhere between Nina Simone, Perfume Genius, PJ Harvey and Leonard Cohen.”    

Flowers & Monks” collects 3 additional songs from that period as well as a rearranged and orchestrated take on Fata Morgana standout “The Oracle“, evidence that this truly was a fertile moment in which his songs grew as naturally as grass. 

To celebrate the one year anniversary Stith teamed with filmmakers Mathew Baynton and Kelly Robinson to create a new video for album stand out Dodges and Feints. Inspired by Stith’s lyrical themes, the video depicts two figures caught in a perpetual game they seem unable to escape.

Watch it here.

 
 

Dodges and Feints

co-written & co-directed by Kelly Robinson & Mathew Baynton

music by DM Stith

From the artists:

Kelly Robinson and Mathew Baynton

We’ve been fans of David from the opening seconds of his debut album Heavy Ghost and have followed him ever since. We met the day after he played his last London show at King’s Place in 2022. We found we were kindred spirits and the idea of working on a video together came up in that very first conversation.

Fata Morgana is some of his best work yet and, though the album is full of standout tracks, something about the energy of ‘Dodges & Feints’ appealed to us to work with.

The song is full of propulsive motion and we started to dream around how this might manifest visually.

We talked about early examples of the moving image, like Eadweard Muybridge’s pioneering experiments and the first films by W.K. Dickson. We also thought about Bill Viola’s work in slow motion, the uncanny sense of movement arrested and scrutinised. Initially presuming we would have to shoot separate elements to David, we conceived an idea of projecting his face onto a figure under a sheet, inspired in part by some of Ken Currie’s work. Though it was subsequently possible to shoot with David here in the UK, the image stuck. Finally, we kept returning to the lyrics, the invocation of children’s games, hide and seek, tag.

Ultimately, the concept blended all of these things: David caught in a perpetual game with a figure under a sheet, a figure that turns out to be himself. The final twist came when David suggested that Mathew be in the video too, an idea that unlocked more readings. Who are these men to each other? Lovers? Enemies? Two sides of the same person? We hope people enjoy the video and, most of all, if they haven’t heard David’s music before, we hope it might be a gateway to discovering more of his incredible catalogue.

 

DM Stith

We met up at a pub near King’s Place where I had played a show the night before, performing the songs on Fata Morgana in front of an audience for the first time. (For me, a primary goal of that record was entirely unrelated to reception, critical or commercial — I’d always written songs primarily built to exist in headphones, for private listening. With this album, I wanted to disrupt that habit by making sure the guitar and vocal parts were simple enough to play by myself, alone on stage in front of an audience. 

It sounds obvious – this is how most folk music is composed, however complex the final recordings end up being, a song is the main course.) Playing those songs for the first time after submitting the album to mixing and mastering meant the fulfillment of a goal I’d been eyeing for most of my career, and it was in that envelope of bliss that I met Kelly and Mat.

So it’s natural, then, that Kelly and Mat’s invitation to be physically in the music, me, myself, on a black stage, reduced to black and white, should feel so correct to me. They developed a concept around this elemental figure of fabric in air, ghostlike but common, sending me test shots from their home in London. In the end we’ve captured the moment of “aha” in a game of hide and seek, the hunter frozen before the strike, the hunted deploying their flourish to allow for escape.

Credits

Director Mathew Baynton

@matbaynton

Director Kelly Robinson

@kellyrobinsonofficial

Producer Martina Amoretti

@ma_rtina_amo

Director of Photography Domizia Salusest

@domisalu

Editor Tamsin Jeffrey

@tijjfilmed

1st AC/DIT Isaac Bokoko

@kokes_tv

Gaffer David Moga

@david_moga13

Production Assistant 

Youssef Nasra

Gaffer David Moga

@david_moga13

Production Assistant Youssef Nasra

Spark/Production Assistant Cadence Jade Dela Cruz

@cadence.jjade

Spark/Production Assistant 

Cadence Jade Dela Cruz

 @cadence.jjade

Thanks to:

Residence Pictures

@residencepics

Big Creative Education

@we.are.bce

& Fully Focussed – MYM

@ukfullyfocused

…and to Rosa Powlowski & Alexis Michaelides

Listen

Lyrics

The Oracle

Time is not an arrow

Time is a grenade and

You’re holding it the wrong way

 

Feels like moving backwards 

Even as you stand in place

Oh, ask the oracle anything

How will I know

How will I know

How will I know

How will I know

 

A fair fight is a fair fight

Almost, but not quite

So what do I do

What do I do

What do I do

What do I do now

 

You become a superstition 

A symbol of regret

A stone we kiss to make a wish

Permission to forget

And you click your heels together

Have you even tried that yet

You had lightning in a bottle and

A promise to collect

At least that’s what you thought it meant

 

In a circuit-guided vessel

Retracing your mistakes

Every day is the same day

On a merry go round

merry go round

merry go round

merry go round

Just holding it down

Holding it down

Holding it down 

Holding it down

You become a superstition 

A symbol of regret

A stone we kiss to make a wish

Permission to forget

And you click your heels together

Have you even tried that yet

You had lightning in a bottle and

A promise to collect

At least that’s what you thought it meant

 

Time is not an arrow

Time is a grenade and

You’re holding it the wrong way

______

Written by DM Stith and Thomas Bartlett

Viola by Marla Hansen

All other instruments performed by DM and Thomas



In Flowers

 

Words don’t drop me know

I am wrapped up in cross words and telephone wires

And I have shut myself up in 

The smallest apartment I could find in upstate New York

Boy, where have I been

Up to my knees in

Up to my knees in

Up to my knees 

In Flowers

 

Turn me inside out

Inside out

 

Old man failed the draft

Peerless and powerless

Just stay still

Just stay still

Just stay still

 

Fell too far to laugh

Stuck in the briar patch

Just stay still

Just stay still

Just stay still

 

Out of my hair you built your nest

How do I ask you for forgiveness

 

As sudden as summer ends

Flushed with the lilacs and

Just stay still

Just stay still

Just stay still

 

And i’ll never understand

I’m a-flop on dry land

Just stay still

Just stay still

Just stay still

 

Gathering up my pile of sand

How do I ask you for forgiveness

Words don’t drop me know

I am wrapped up in cross words and telephone wires

And I have shut myself up in 

The smallest apartment I could find in upstate New York

Boy, where have I been

Up to my knees in

Up to my knees in

Up to my knees 

In Flowers

______

Written and performed by DM Stith and Thomas Bartlett




 

Inchworm

Something’s in the air

Trying to peddle down

All that beauty

Falling down on you

 

Reaching my toes

Nothing below

 

Purple bruise is looking good today

Can you feel it change

Reaching my toes

Nothing below

 

Reaching my toes

Nothing below

______

Written and performed by DM Stith and Thomas Bartlett

 

Fiery Burning Monks

 

The vents are humming like monks

Wreathing incense over

Two statues in a stone sedan

AC coming on

 

I put you there

You’re a vision in my blood

To keep you there

You’re a vision in my blood

 

After the fireworks fell

And we set off home

My hand smoothed your hair

Just to say hello

 

Heaven waves

Sighing through the night

Hello

______

Written and performed by DM Stith and Thomas Bartlett

 
 

About DM Stith

DM Stith’s unique voice bridges, in seemingly effortless ways, the expanse between quailing sadness and featherlight joy. A singer-songwriter and visual artist currently living in Rochester, New York, Stith has explored his expressive range on a variety of projects including three solo albums (Heavy Ghost, Pigeonheart, and 2023’s Fata Morgana), a full album collaboration with John Mark Lapham of The Earlies (The Revival Hour’s Scorpio Little Devil), two orchestral song cycles with composers Sarah Kirkland Snider (Unremembered) and Judd Greenstein (My City), as well as a slew of collaborations with Son Lux, My Brightest Diamond and Sufjan Stevens.

As a visual artist, Stith follows the same roaming interior curiosity through pencil, ink and watercolor, forming maps of an intriguing austere topography.

 

“…Stith creates musical friction in a way that’s brilliantly compelling… shimmering with impressionistic beauty.”

The Guardian

 

“Stith orchestrates lush, pitch-dark soundscapes that writhe under his religion-provoked introversion.”

A.V. Club

 

“There’s a time between sleeping and waking that’s occupied by DM Stith – weaving our sleep with hypnotic spells, wild chorals, plucked strings and primitive keys.”

N.M.E.