Last year, Toronto songwriter Doug Tielli embarked on a brief UK tour and, after missing his flight home, spent an epic layover of sorts in a suburb of Coventry, England. This two-month stay resulted in the new album Keresley, due out on August 27.
The eight songs combine far-reaching influences from Africa, Brazil and the UK and branch out into styles like folk, jazz, spiritual hymns and soul. The instrumentation includes guitar, voice, percussion and brass.
Keresley takes its name from the suburb where he stayed, and Tielli wrote in a statement, "The magic of Keresley is not on the surface. Those fields under all kinds of skies are always wondrous. The grass got long, and filled with wildflowers, and red-purple grasses, the sky rolled with low, heavy clouds, and occasionally sun, flitted with birds. Fathers and sons, old Scotsmen ... everyone with a dog … would share a few words and stories with me from time to time. When the grass was tall enough - in June or so, I lay down, fully hidden to any who passed by ... though I did worry that I would be spotted somehow, and thought unusual — which I am and am not at the same time, you know what I mean."
See the tracklist below and scroll past that to stream the slow-moving piano ballad "A Dream That I Am," which closes the album.
Keresley:
1. Water Falls
2. Milo
3. Oak
4. Big Man of the Underbrush
5. With You and Without You
6. Being Mist
7. Lovelovelove
8. A Dream That I Am
The eight songs combine far-reaching influences from Africa, Brazil and the UK and branch out into styles like folk, jazz, spiritual hymns and soul. The instrumentation includes guitar, voice, percussion and brass.
Keresley takes its name from the suburb where he stayed, and Tielli wrote in a statement, "The magic of Keresley is not on the surface. Those fields under all kinds of skies are always wondrous. The grass got long, and filled with wildflowers, and red-purple grasses, the sky rolled with low, heavy clouds, and occasionally sun, flitted with birds. Fathers and sons, old Scotsmen ... everyone with a dog … would share a few words and stories with me from time to time. When the grass was tall enough - in June or so, I lay down, fully hidden to any who passed by ... though I did worry that I would be spotted somehow, and thought unusual — which I am and am not at the same time, you know what I mean."
See the tracklist below and scroll past that to stream the slow-moving piano ballad "A Dream That I Am," which closes the album.
Keresley:
1. Water Falls
2. Milo
3. Oak
4. Big Man of the Underbrush
5. With You and Without You
6. Being Mist
7. Lovelovelove
8. A Dream That I Am
