I first encountered DA Stern through his cover of Weird Al's "Since You've Been Gone," which caused me to feel an immediate affinity for his work, not purely on a subject matter basis (a bit of an Al aficionado, I'll cop to it), but mostly due to his aptitude for embellishing the sturdy pop qualities of the song while still delivering on its long wind up and quick payoff. It really demonstrated to me that he has a knack for identifying melodies while uniquely curating their presentation with his own gifted imprint. When I checked out his 2021 EP People Named Ben, I was glad to see that his sense of humor was not restrained to covers and that his original material exhibited an even greater level of refinement than his covers. The title track has this kind of sleepy, prattle to it where a hobnobbing of keys and woodwinds, and a few patchy bars of flighty xylophones, comingle to capture the essence of a cross-continental autumn breeze, a cooling felicitous calm that also manages to pay tribute to the Bens of the world (I'm sure DA also likes Davids, Mikes, and Clems, but I have to agree, Bens can be pretty great and deserve our respect). It's, of course, surprising to witness someone embracing mid-century tropes in pop, folk and jazz in this day and age, but what's delightful is how effortlessly he carries them off, especially on the generous but intermittently ominous sweep and staggered tropical deluge of "Jacket On My Birthday" and the gradual salt-laced roll and the nectarine afterglow of "Campfire." It feels like DA could really step into just about any genre or established style and manage to amp up its quirks and harmonious potential, like a star apprentice of Todd Rundgren who also moonlights in an after-hours work-study program with Thundercat. Now if only he could think of something nice to say about all us Micks (or at least this one) he'd have a fan for life.
