Standard Deviation by Danny Schmidt

Standard Deviation is Danny Schmidt’s tenth studio record, and the second independent release since leaving venerable Americana roots label, Red House Records. These new songs have the same sort of lyrical complexity and poetry that has distinguished Schmidt’s earlier work, but this time they’re draped in the lush ear-candy production of strings and steel guitars and ethereal girl harmonies.

Standard Deviation tackles some difficult themes and subjects, from gentrification to infertility, radical honesty to quantum entanglement. But more than any other, the themes of fatherhood and family emerge on this record, as Schmidt recently became a first time father, sparking powerful meditations on human connectedness, and on the transformation of identity into the role of Papa. And on the blinding love released by that process.

Named to the Chicago Tribune's "50 Most Significant Songwriters in the Last 50 Years," Austin, TX-based singer/songwriter Danny Schmidt is considered a preeminent writer, an artist whose earthy poetry manages to somehow conjure magic from the mundane, with lyrical depth drawing comparisons to Leonard Cohen and Townes Van Zandt.

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