It’s been quite a year for Noah Sties.

Growing up in Middlebury, Sties began college at Purdue University Fort Wayne, has become immersed in the Summit City’s music scene, and is now featured in the ALT Homegrown Spotlight.

“It’s definitely been exciting and exhausting to a degree,” he said. “I love playing shows. It’s just me. I don’t have a band. While that might be more work for me, it’s flexible, because if a band ever wants me to open up for them, they can give me a call at last minute.”

Experimentation

Sties has released four singles on streaming services, his latest being “Fantasy” on Dec. 14. You can also find his 2020 EP Our Conscious Hours online, showcasing a singer-songwriter that brings much more than an acoustic guitar.

“I said it’s indie alternative, but I like to be a little more experimental with my soundscape,” he said. “I like to be a storyteller, certainly.

“I sample drums and I like to really experiment with different kinds of synths and background samples.”

Citing Hippo Campus and Dijon as influences, Sties’ musical journey began as a youth.

“My parents were both touring musicians with their church group, so I grew up with a lot of Christian punk and alternative rock,” he said. “Also through video-game soundtracks, I kind of started finding my sound.”

Bedroom pop

Sties says he’s been making lo-fi beats and sampling the past five years but began adding vocals more recently thanks in large part to Dreamer Boy’s song, “Falling for the Wrong One.”

“He was making similar music to what I was doing with the lo-fi beats, but he had vocals on it,” Sties said. “That kind of influenced me and showed me it was possible to put vocals on something without having a lot of people involved.”

Coined “bedroom pop,” the subgenre has become popular as musicians can check out YouTube and other sites to see how they can make do-it-yourself music. Popular musicians that fall into this category include Billie Eilish, Steve Lacy, Rex Orange County, and beabadoobee.

Coming into his own

Moving to Fort Wayne for college, Sties has been able to make music outside of the bedroom, utilizing the studios at PFW Sweetwater Music Center. Along with that, he’s been able to find venues that he could not while growing up in Elkhart County,

“I didn’t start playing live shows until I moved to Fort Wayne, besides playing music at my church,” he said.

“The first weekend I was here, I went to a show at The Ruin and saw Secondhand Denim and The Namby Pamby,” he added. “Immediately, I was like, ‘Oh, wow. I’ve never seen quality musicians my age before.’ ”

Along with playing more live shows, Sties is working on an album.

“It will be a lot more folk, singer-songwriter,” he said. “I’ve been listening to a lot of Dijon, but also this artist named Samia, who just put out an album and is a great singer-songwriter who has been working with a lot of artists I enjoy. I’ll take those influences, then like a Mac DeMarco influence. I’m gonna kind of combine all those influences to make a kind of a vintage folk singer-songwriter sound.”

If things go according to plan, all those influences will merge into one concept.

“I want it to kind of represent a coming-of-age movie, but kind of make that style of movie into a sound, if that’s possible,” he said.