Massachusetts singer-songwriter Stephen Kellogg had a great idea for his epic new album South, West, North, East, but it’s one so cleverly complicated that it’s best to bite the bullet and commit the music writer’s sin of directly quoting a press release:
The album is a journey across the map — each part was recorded in a different region of the USA, with different co-producers and musicians. The Southern rock flavor of South (recorded in Nashville and Atlanta and co-produced by Travis McNabb of Better Than Ezra) slides into the cowboy motif of West (recorded on a farm in Boulder, CO and co-produced by Gregory Alan Isakov); and the more indie rock feel of North (recorded in a cabin in Woodstock, NY) gives way to the songwriter pop of East (recorded in Washington, DC).
It’s a fantastic idea, and we’ve got a song from the “South” section for you to hear, the lovely “The Open Heart”.
“Sometimes in our lives things happen which may seem bad on the surface, but ultimately they end up being good and necessary,” Kellogg tells PopMatters. “A lot of times it takes the clarity of hindsight to see the intrinsic value of a life event and if we’re not careful we can actually miss it. This song could easily be about a lover, but I think if I get down to it, I was writing it for my old bandmates. I wouldn’t change a thing. I really wouldn’t, but that doesn’t mean that it’s all easy or that things don’t hurt along the way. ‘Hey so what, it opened up my heart’ is basically what I’d like to be on my gravestone.”
The South section of the album will be available on streaming services on 30 October. That day you can also pre-order the entire album, which comes out on 12 February, 2016.