“Feels” marks a rebirth of sorts for David Franklin Courtright, who moved on from his Suno Deko moniker after COVID proved a turbulent era for the songwriter and poet. Between a psychiatric hospitalization and his father’s death from cancer, the early 2020s became a period of healing that ultimately made Courtright realize that his natural pivot toward a more personal creative output needed to be tied to his own name. “I wanted to take away the shield I created by using a moniker and lay this work down straight from the source,” he explains. “Loss removes a lot of illusions, strips us away to our naked selves. It felt time to step into a new intimacy with my work and with the world.”
For now, the evidence of this rebirth is his debut single “Feels,” a track initially composed in 2018 ahead of a European tour with Angel Olsen and Wye Oak, but one that understandably has taken on a new life since then. “It was a solo tour, so ‘Feels’ began its life as a rather sparse, lonely, and rambling ballad, but one I came to grow into on that tour,” he shares. “When I went into the studio in 2018, I wanted to retain that simplicity and immediacy, but started experimenting with different textures—Wurlitzer and bass, to start.” Perhaps the most notable addition to the track, though, was the spectral backing vocals provided by Julianna Barwick as the song begins to expand. “I love both stripped-down and full-band versions, but Julianna’s vocals really made it transcend into something holy and profound. It lifts me out of my chair every time.”
The result is something that feels like a slightly more ambient take on Fleet Foxes’ chamber folk, with Courtright’s vocals occasionally even sounding eerily like those of Robin Pecknold. It’s fitting, then, that the music video for the track directed by Riccardo Sforza is largely set within the sort of mountainous terrain that band famously sang about—in Courtright’s case, a video production space and Airbnb in the Alps called Aran that’s operated by Sforza. “[Ric] really captured the quiet joy and peace of those mountains, and I’m so happy to have this document of the deep love and resounding beauty of that place.”
Check out the video below, and expect more from Courtright this summer.
