Back in August, we wrote about ‘Sun Self‘, a single by David Swick’s DoomFolk StarterKit. The single, part of an ongoing series with Like You Mean It Records, served as a perfect introduction to the Oregon-based songwriter. Using a warm and intimate style that nevertheless carried an underlying tension, Swick explored the double-edged sword of introspection. Where the sense of self-discovery is balanced by a more negative force. But with its compassionate tone underpinned by collaboration, the song ultimately served as “a reminder that stepping outside of one’s own thoughts is sometimes needed,” as we put it. “That ideas and problems can be shared, others invited to help.”
Though charting different territory, the latest DoomFolk StarterKit single, ‘Kristofferson/StarStuffs’ is similarly concerned with conflict and contradiction. “[The song] is about the way relationships reveal who we are and how we respond to that verdict,” Swick explains. “The narrator in this song gets their ego handed to them by the person they admire. This conflicting moment causes the narrator to re-think their understanding of self, but change doesn’t happen overnight.” The gentle sound evokes this headspace, warm yet almost hesitant in its rhythm, placing one foot in front of the other with a halting uncertainty.
But as the track unfurls, so too does the narrator’s candidness. What seemed like naïve hope begins to feel a little more like desperation, a need to be loved whatever the circumstances. The wish undermines the possibility from the beginning, and ‘Kristofferson/StarStuffs’ is therefore less a picture of self-contemplation than that of a relationship slipping through one’s fingers. A sense of loss felt keenly in the moment, though one perhaps required in the grand scheme of things. “Honestly, rejection is a happy and relieving ending here,” Swick concludes. “These two getting together sounds like a tragedy.”