DM Stith

It’s been an auspicious start to 2009 for David Michael Stith. Following his transition from graphic designer to full-time musician, his début Curtain Speech EP dropped right at the end of last year to consolidate blog hype and land him near the top of many ‘ones to watch’ lists. Fast-forward six months, and following rapturously received shows at South By Southwest in March, the 28 year-old Indiana native has reached the end of his first European tour. And, although nursing a head cold that he tells us will only respond to whiskey, tonight sees him in jubilant form.

Accompanied by bass, kick drum, violin and cello, Stith’s eerie take on leftfield American folk certainly takes a few listens before casting its spell. It’s hard to pin down the many forces at work on songs like ‘Fire Of Birds’ and tonight’s opener ‘Pity Dance’, both taken from début album proper Heavy Ghost. A sense of longing, certainly, but there’s also a feeling of unease and uncertainty that befits that record’s sombre title.

And while there might not be any ghosts in Crawdaddy tonight, Stith’s performance is undeniably haunted by questions of identity and purpose. This yearning tendency, along with his quivering falsetto, has earned him more than a few Antony Hegarty comparisons. But tonight’s highlight, the achingly beautiful ‘Morning Glory Cloud’, is perhaps closer in mood and sound to Grizzly Bear/Department Of Eagles lynchpin Daniel Rossen, Stith sounding like a man possessed as he sings “I have a dream and it’s gone / Catholic clouds rolling on.” This isn’t the only allusion to spirituality in tonight’s set, proving that Stith shares more than just a record label (Asthmatic Kitty) and sensitive disposition with folk-pop poster boy Sufjan Stevens. The swirling, hypnotic ‘Around The Lion Legs’ – one of three Curtain Speech songs aired this evening – even sounds like the missing link between Stevens and Vashti Bunyan, gradually building from gently plucked beginnings to a dense, wailing orchestral crescendo.

And speaking of crescendos, tonight’s encore, ‘Just Once’, swells to a menacing, storm-like close, Stith violently beseeching either a God, a lover or himself to come out from behind the clouds. “I have to know, I have to know, I have to know” he sings, as if caught in some insistent fever dream. All in all, a suitably uncomfortable note on which to end tonight’s tantalisingly short set.