A Song For Friday: Darian Donovan Thomas

For his immersive debut album, the violinist and composer draws on a wealth of experience and friendships.

If you haven’t yet witnessed the dazzling sight of Darian Donovan Thomas, tall, striking, flamboyantly dressed, and outlandishly coiffed, generating a world of sound with violin and electronics, you’ve missed one of the richest musical forces of our time. I’ve seen him both as an ensemble player, as in last year’s performance of Spencer Zahn and Dawn Richard’s Pigments project, or as a co-leader of MEDIAQUEER, his duo with Phong Tran, and he was riveting in either context. You might have already spotted him performing with Arooj Aftab or Moses Sumney.

In any case, with today’s release of A Room With Many Doors: Night, part one of a projected double album on New Amsterdam Records, Thomas will be only more impossible to ignore. Employing lush galaxies of often synthetic sound surrounding his violin and voice, the album’s five tracks take you on a journey from heartbreak to joy.

Let’s zoom in on the opening track, Snow Storm. Featuring a melody reminiscent of Stevie Wonder, it includes a horn section of saxophonists Alfredo Colón and Ben Chapoteau-Katz and trombonist Kalia Vandever. Under Thomas’ instruction, they gradually work toward where they are playing “like the worst middle school player ever.” Pushing beyond the bounds of “good playing” only makes their expression of Thomas’ emotional landscape feel more sincere. Listen now and hear how their sound drives the narrative of the song.

Thomas conceived Snow Storm as a canvas for deep self-reflections: “What are the things I need to confront within myself? All these heartbreaks have happened, and the common denominator is me. What is there that I can take responsibility for? What do I want to change? What do I want to keep?.” To understand how hard he pushed the track to get there, check out this live performance of a solo version from a year ago.

Aside from Vandever, who makes another appearance on the meltingly gorgeous Volver Volver, other guests include Taja Cheek, who performs and records as L’Rain, and Tran, with everyone adding distinctive touches to realize Thomas’ overarching vision. To learn more about Thomas’ process, dial up New Amsterdam’s Reverberations podcast, which is loaded with details and insights. I’ll give the artist the last word as an imprecation to step outside your comfort zone and listen to Snow Storm and the whole album with an open mind:

“We don’t have to live in these genre spaces. They’re just an element or rhetoric that we can use for the song.”

Listen to all the songs for Friday here or in the playlist below!

Note: The graphic above was based on a photo by Oscar Moreno.