Asthmatic Kitty Records

DM Stith

Thanksgiving Moon

Catalog: AKR063 • Cover Art: David Stith
Release date: November 3, 2009

The second in a series of three EPs, Thanksgiving Moon EP starts with the original demo that was the first to be recorded for DM Stith’s debut album Heavy Ghost. In 2004 Stith had left Brooklyn to move to upstate New York. A year after the move Stith wrote “Thanksgiving Moon”, a reflection of the landscape of Western New York. The song captures his voice between the mammoth oaks and guitar shimmering beneath the night sky. “Thanksgiving Moon” marked a new direction in Stith’s songwriting. This was the beginning of something like “a sound” or the maturation of a voice. He sent the song to My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Worden who said “…just make 9 more like this and you’re done with your album.” And it was also this song that ended up flapping around the Asthmatic Kitty offices, resulting in the label commissioning Stith to finish an album.

The EP offers up myriad of interpretations and reworkings; from the marching band gut punch of the re-envisioned “Pigs” to Michna’s (Ghostly International) tropical dance remix. Additionally Stith’s cover of David Byrne’s “A Soft Seduction” flutters with serene tenderness while labelmate Rafter turns “Thanksgiving Moon” into a doombeat terror. The EP closes with Dayna Kurtz (who first convinced Stith to perform live) covering the title track, turning it into a smokey jazz standard. Yet despite these stylistically divergent tracks, the EP is able to maintain an aesthetic consistency that makes for a pleasurable listen from start to finish.