COLUMBIA — There’s a truly haunted atmosphere on "Two Crossed Stars," the new album by the Columbia project Sunshone Still. A sort of subtle glow envelopes the songs and the listener, a calming, drifting feeling almost like a dream.
The opening track starts out as slow, deliberate piano-based ballad with Chris Smith, the singer/songwriter who essentially is Sunshone Still, singing plaintive lines like “Where did you go?”
But gradually the song takes on seductive layers of production, including vintage-sounding keyboards, a touch of Auto-Tune on Smith’s vocals and a low-key heartbeat of drums underneath it all.
It's a perfect representation of what the journey through "Two Crossed Stars" is like: a mix of impossibly delicate intimacy, stellar songwriting and creative production.
Chris Smith's Sunshone Still project is a haunting, lyric-driven concept from the Columbia-based artist. Photo by Ben Premeaux/Provided
What’s perhaps most surprising about "Two Crossed Stars" is how first-rate the sound is, considering that Smith recorded it all in his home studio over a two-year period. Smith played every instrument you hear on the album, his third under the name Sunshone Still (the name comes from a lyric by Nick Drake, one of Smith’s favorite artists.)
Smith has a passion for film and TV scoring, and he decided he needed top-notch equipment to explore that passion. As it turns out, that had the side-benefit of giving him great gear to record "Two Crossed Stars."
“I've always fantasized about writing a score for film or TV, but I really didn't feel like I had equipped myself yet to do that from a studio standpoint,” Smith said. “So over the last few years, I've been building that stuff in a room in my house.”
And that love of film and TV scores didn’t just help the recording — it helped the songs themselves.
“I love that cinematic feel that you can get with music,” Smith said, “Something that is emotional, that people can really gravitate to. Something that hooks in a listener emotionally.”
Having assembled the studio he needed, Smith set about the task at hand, actually recording the songs, a process that was both difficult and liberating.
“It was painstaking,” Smith said, “but it was such a great process because for years when we would go into a studio and record, I always enjoyed that process but I always felt a little out of control because I was working with a sound engineer. A lot of times I would feel at their mercy for the direction that the sound might go. And so I went into this project convincing myself that I could try to fill in those gaps. I spent probably hundreds of hours on YouTube learning various recording processes.”
Chris Smith's Sunshone Still project is a haunting, lyric-driven concept from the Columbia-based artist. Photo by Ben Premeaux/Provided
What’s also surprising about "Two Crossed Stars" is that it’s Sunshone Still’s first full-length album since 2012, though there are some good reasons for the delay.
“I did this album in 2012,” Smith said of "Thewaytheworlddies." “And then I just needed sort of a mental break. But also, my wife and I were trying to raise two kids and I wanted to be available and around for them. In addition I had some restaurants; I was a franchisee for Moe's Southwest Grill and Smashburger. So between family and work, I just didn't have any room in my head for music. But in the last few years, time has opened up for me. My partner and I sold our restaurants, so that has opened up my capacity to make music.”
And now that Sunshone Still is back up and running, Smith has all sorts of plans for the project — including making an EP that's "just piano and vocals."
"And I've already started noodling on the next full-length Sunshone Still album. And on that one, I'm going to go a little different direction," Smith said. "I just love to infuse these future songs with some interesting sounds that are unique to me. I really try not to repeat myself.”
