“Schisandra” (Dayspired song) – Queen City Sounds and Art

Dayspired2_crop — Dayspired, photo courtesy the artists

For “Schisandra,” Dayspired (Matthew Bejtlich and Neil Desai) brought on board Ashish Vyas, bassist for downtempo legends Thievery Corporation and Stephon Alexander, theoretical physicist and jazz saxophonist. Dayspired brought the playful percussion, textures and easy flowing structure and Vyas and Alexander brought the grounding for a song that in structure and composition was designed to reflect the schisandra berry, the “Five-flavor berry.” A keyboard melody sits in the background as an array of percussion sets the pace and bell tones course through the proceedings while the bass pulses the song along and Alexander’s expressive sax sits in the foreground of the mix. While the root of the song is a reflection of five components coming together to create a greater whole it also suggests movement like a day spent riding a train through an exotic landscape like the lands of Eastern Russia and Northern China where the aforementioned berry is most often found and the mix of cultures one would encounter along the way, it also suggests a period of reflection where maybe your body is at rest but the mind is active in taking in an experience and seeing it for where it fits into your life. The song doesn’t sound complex but the complexity rests in the way its diversity of detail assembled to make something unified. Listen to “Schisandra” on Spotify and follow Dayspired at the links below.