Turning Heartache Into Art
www.kierangoss.com

Kieran Goss left Ireland for Austin, Texas, to record his eighth solo album. ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’ took shape in the Texan heat during a handful of loose, live sessions with the aid of co-producer and musician, Gabe Rhodes.

There’s a remarkable, reflective maturity to ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’ which in many ways reflects Goss’s personal life, which has been beset by turmoil over the last couple of years. During the making of the album he lost both his mother and his young sister-in-law to cancer. Then, shortly before his mother passed away, his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. Luckily her treatment was successful and two years on, she remains cancer-free. Perhaps as a result of all this, ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’ may be the artist’s most direct work yet. “The way I write has always been from the heart”, Goss says, “and I’m less afraid to be open and display vulnerability in my writing as I get older, to dig deep into how we process life, how we play the cards we’re dealt”.

The writing and production on the album is lean and focused throughout. The beautifully crafted songs are supported by spare, spacious arrangements and judicious use of harmony vocals. The opening track, ‘One Boy’s Treasure’, is a series of nostalgic snapshots of precious memories which concludes with the realisation that “nothing’s lost that I can’t find” and sets the tone for this thoughtful, hopeful album. There’s plenty of Goss’s trademark sunny melodies to be found here too. The wonderful fizz of ‘The Reason Why’ and ‘The One That Got Away’ balance out Goss’s ruminations on loss on the title track and love lost on ‘Into Your Arms’ and carry the album along to the reflective shuffle of the closing track, ‘Make The Morning Shine’, which is a prayer for peace in the midst of strife, and which has one of the most beautifully uplifting outros ever heard on record.

Much has been made of Goss’s masterful stagecraft –in the words of country music legend Don Williams, his “amazing ability to reach out to his audience and connect with them in a very special way”. On ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’, arguably for the first time in Goss’s career, the lyrical and melodic promise of his excellent early work, married to the spare, restrained production has crystallised to bridge the gap between his live shows and his recordings. While it may be premature to use the words “career-defining album” this early on in his career, that’s very close to what ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’ feels like.

Kieran Goss – I’ll Be Seeing You
Available 6th February 2009 on CD and download