Local Band Dots Not Feathers Releasing New CD

From a spider bite to “Dolphin World,” in a city hopping with cutting-edge talent in the music industry, this local indie-pop-rock band will land in Plush on Locust Street this Friday night. Tickets are just $7.

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With their second album, “Dolphin World,” coming out Friday, April 18, Dots Not Feathers is giving the indie pop genre another great album.

Winning the Riverfront Times Best Folk Artist in 2013 and Best New Artist Award in 2011, their newest album will surely offer you that vintage feel that gives the listener a focus on the lyrics in each song.

Playing at many local venues such as The Pageant, Off Broadway, The Firebird and many other local venues, Plush (3224 Locust St.) will be hosting the CD Release concert for their newest album.

With the band first getting together as a group of friends in a dorm room in 2010 at UMSL, Dots Not Feathers has grown to a band of six members.

The members consist of Stephen Baier (vocals, guitar), Ryan Myer (vocals, guitar and baritone ukulele), Jessica Haley (vocals, omnichord), Kate Brooking (vocals, synth, percussion and piano), Chris Dickey (bass), and Nick Blackburn (drums, percussion).

Main lyricist, Baier, shows intimacy with each song telling a story of either a feeling or a significant event in his life.

The new album “Dolphin World” was mostly written around such an event in Baier’s life.

In 2011 Baier was bit by a brown recluse spider while in Jefferson City, Mo., for a friend’s wedding.

When he got home to the doctor he discovered there was no antivenom for this kind of spider bite so all he could do was wait it out with the help of pain medication, knowing it was going to hurt horribly.

So, like many other Americans given this kind of diagnosis he went to the Internet “to search brown recluse bite, and it was the worst thing I’ve ever done,” said Baier.

Baier’s friend Ally came and picked him up and moved into her parents’ basement. Because he was sick and he had nothing else to do he decided to write songs because they had a piano and he had a guitar.

This is when he wrote most of the songs on the “Dolphin World” album.

The song “Between Dancing and Dying,” is one of the most poignant songs he wrote because he was writing it half in and half out of the pain from the bite.

With Haley’s smooth voice leading this song it reminds me of Death Cab for Cutie meets She and Him with a pop twist.

“It came together really well and it’s a cool song that’s like a time stamp of an interesting part of my life,” said Baier.

He was at Ally’s house for two weeks and had so much time on his hands that he would write all day, which led to this new album.

“It’s 10 tracks. We’ve spent a year and a half working on it. We recorded for three months. We recorded a lot for it. A lot. All the time in the studio was just crazy. It was just awesome,” said Baier.

Baier’s favorite track on the album is “Pitter-Patter.”

“It’s an interlude song. It actually wasn’t meant to be that long of a song. It was just the coolest one with our approach to recording,” said Baier.

What makes this track so special to Baier is the process of how this song was recorded.

“It was a day in the studio where it was just Ryan and I and the chief engineer. And everyone else was at work or something and so Ryan and I had two hours to spend recording and me and him just had this focus brain mode and wrote this entire ending arrangement and it turned out really cool,” said Baier.

With the anticipation of the CD release party I was curious to see how many people would be attending this party and Baier said that it’s hard to tell.

“St. Louis right now has the best problem ever, which is that they have tons of bands playing every weekend that are local,” said Baier. “So you run into the problem that bands you would normally go see are playing against you. But it’s like the best thing ever because it is just a lot of good music fostering up a larger audience.”

The release party on Friday, April 18, will take place at Plush, which is a local downtown venue that holds about 600 people and has the same vibe as the interior décor of the City Museum.

Admission is $7 at the door, featuring local bands Volcanoes, Palace, Emily Otnes, and Amen Lucy, Amen, who will be playing as opening acts.