Darian Donovan Thomas — A Room With Many Doors

A Room With Many Doors: Night

Darian Donovan Thomas

On Friday, August 2, 2024, Darian Donovan Thomas (he/him), the composer, multi-instrumentalist, and interdisciplinary artist lauded for his “bright, fresh and, in the best sense, innocent” musical approach by Steve Reich, and whose music is “a loud, sometimes overwhelming, yet always vivid, wash of harmony” (Vanessa Ague), releases his debut album A Room With Many Doors: Night, a collection of songs that morph between hyper pop, noise, and ambient palettes, via New Amsterdam Records.

A Room With Many Doors is a dizzying, kaleidoscopic, and epic narrative journey of self discovery that meets the listener at the end of a series of “experiments in heartbreak”. The songs on ARWMD explore questions of introspection (“what do we want to return to? Do we want to return to one person in particular, or do we want to return to an older version of self? A more stable self?”) from multiple angles. Darian’s virtuosic sense of scale and texture, as well as his lyrical vulnerability make ARWMD a record that invites multiple listens and explorations. He is joined by an impressive cast of collaborators including: Alfredo Colón, Ben Chapoteau-Katz, Kalia Vandever, Taja Cheek (L’Rain), and Phong Tran.

A Room With Many Doors picks up at the end of heartbreak, and at the beginning of self assessment.
Darian explains “I’m trying to make a place for myself where I can be honest with myself (safe space), while remembering where I come from, and the people that have been around me. This place started as family, and through time became the friends I made throughout my career.
We get into these different heartbreaks – different things that at the time seemed world ending, but now are laughable — and ask ourselves ‘What actually hurt? What are the things I need to confront within myself? All these heart breaks 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?’ (Snow Storm).
Usually at that point you’re emotionally raw — it’s healthy to call your guardians. Maybe call mom and have her remind us of happiness (ending of Failed Acolyte). Let’s sing a song from childhood (Volver, Volver). Then we have to go forward — not just being silly and bright — but with an openness of ‘I’m choosing to be joyful’. I’ve gone through yet another door of heartbreak, and will leave through a door marked Joy.” (Flirting).
The songs on ARWMD fall into a larger narrative structure which blurs the lines between songs. “A composer's job is to be a time wizard. You’re supposed to make things feel natural even if their scale is kind of abnormal,” says Darian. The pieces take the listener through various fragmented episodes which hint at jazz, hyper pop, noise, video game music, and ambient which morph in-and-out of themselves over the course of the roughly 35 minute run time. “We don’t have to to live in these genre spaces. They’re just an element or rhetoric that we can use for the song.”
Darian’s process involves giving the performers certain prompts on how to perform the music. On ‘Snow Storm’ he asked his horn section (Alfredo Colón, Ben Chapoteau-Katz, and Kalia Vandever) to “(1) be calm, maybe kind of tired — very plain and uncolored sound, (2) then be more aggravated, and (3) on the third time play it as if you’re the worst middle school player ever. Raw and sincere, and maybe a little embarrassed. Then do that whole process again but more extreme in all of these directions.” Kalia Vandever’s solo on ‘Volver, Volver’ was directed by “thinking of the person that you’ve loved the most - that you’ve lost - and imagine that you’re calling to them. Summon them.” while Phong Tran’s instruction on ‘Flirting (coda)’ was “destroy this”.
ARWMD invites the listener to “come in from a genre that they like and leave through another.”

Tracklist
1. Snow Storm
2. Failed Acolyte
3. Volver Volver
4. Flirting
5. Flirting Coda
Credits
All tracks are mastered by Angel Hair Audio LLC (Fire-Toolz)
Album Art Direction: Darian
Album Art Fabrication and Design: Phong Tran
Snow Storm
Alfredo Colón: Alto Saxophone.
Ben Chapoteau-Katz: Tenor Saxaphone
Kalia Vandever: Trombone
Jesse Bielenberg: Session Engineer (Skymall Studio)
Failed Acolyte
L’Rain
Ben Chapateau-Katz: Synth hell/heaven using Prophet 12, Vongon Polyphrase
Taja Cheek: Laughter, Vocal Soundscape using Boss ve-500, Hologram Electronics Microcosm, Line 6 mkii, Brand New Noise Zoots Kalimba recorder
Volver Volver
Kalia Vandever: Trombone using Electro-Harmonix Memory Man, TC Electronic Ditto and Quintessence, JHS Colour Box V2, and Hologram Electronics Microcosm
Darian: Arrangement, Vocals, Production
Flirting
Darian: Everything
Flirting Coda
Phong Tran: Sampling and Abstraction using Make noise Morphagene, Mimeophone, 0-ctrl,
Mutable Instruments Beads, Korg Minilogue.
Darian: Songwriter, Vocals, Violin Orchestra (using Line6 M5, Meris PolyMoon, Eventide H9), Bells, Production.