You might think you’re DIY, but did you build your own synthesizer out of locally sourced Massachusetts wood? Did you build your own off-grid log cabin to write and self-produce your new solo album? Stevie Jick did, and that album, Between It, is out today. 

Jick’s long been a player in the folk space, first with New York bands Via Intercom and the punk group Tetchy (listen for his delicate fingerpicking, it’s there). It was after leaving the big city that he sought the quiet and solitude of rural life, moved to a forested plot in Western Mass, and began construction on the Lincoln Log cabin of his dreams. 

Jick building his cabin. Photo courtest of Stevie Jick.

Jick standing in front of his completed cabin. Photo courtesy of Stevie Jick.

Now rooted in Somerville, Jick returned to the cabin to record Between It with only a few microphones for company. “In certain ways I was writing based on ideas and song snippets I’d thought of over the last many years, but at the same time the whole thing came together really fast, and I just kinda cranked it out, so it’s kind of a splash of just one singular time and place,” he said. “Much of the music is still rooted, musically or lyrically, in things that were being felt out there.” 

The instrumentation, too, has its roots in the environs of Western Mass. Jick designed and built a custom synthesizer he calls Black Cherry out of wood from the area around his cabin, and it’s responsible for the ghostly sound on Between It that’s part slide guitar and part theremin. 

Black Cherry. Photo courtesy of Stevie Jick.

You can hear Between It everywhere now.