Songs for a healing heart

Though he’s a man of many stories, Kele Goodwin’s offering to the public resides in his beautiful folk music—though “beautiful” doesn’t quite seem to capture the essence of his creations. His just-released album “Hymns”—which tonight’s show at The Woods is celebrating—is music for reflection and reinvention, music for a fearless revolution of the human spirit, music for healing. 

Having seen some of the most drastic aspects of America, it is (or maybe isn’t) a great mystery as to how Goodwin can create such serene music with just his voice and guitar. He was born and spent most of his growing years in Alaska, considering his home to be Juneau. At age three, he and his family moved down to the Navajo reservation, where tales of poverty and beauty intertwined themselves like scars through his youth; at age 11, he returned home to Juneau, where he stayed until age 21. From there, he moved to Portland and has been living here ever since. 

“Alaska is a lot like this,” said Goodwin, pointing to the allusive image on the cover of his album, “only everything is more extreme. Like these mountains would be up to here,” he said as he dragged his index finger above the picture, above the album itself and stopped a few inches away from the album on the wooden table. The image is a nameless, placeless artifact that his brother, an anthropologist, provided. 

Listening to Goodwin’s “Hymns,” one can almost hear Alaska’s ferocious alpine peaks, rugged with such exquisite allure, upon which he spent many days of his youth. Listening to this album, one can most definitely hear snowfall, the pristine sparkling powder making tree branches drape like tired limbs or crescent moons touching the earth. The song “Free,” musically, sounds like a woman dancing open-armed through such scenery, snowdrift up to her knees.

Helping enhance such musical imagery is Sean Ogilvie of Museé Mechanique, who arranged all the instrumentation on the album, which includes cello, violin, oboe, clarinet, French horn, percussion and mandolin. With such a seemingly large orchestration behind Goodwin, Ogilvie somehow manages to make the effect pleasantly minimalist. But his subtle amplification of melody is merely ornamentation surrounding the honesty of Goodwin’s collection of songs that were written over a period of five years. The lyrics reveal a character unafraid to face difficulties head-on, and allow him great vulnerability to the public eye—surmounting mainstream materialism. 

Overall, the album has many similarities to bands like Iron and Wine, Horse Feathers or artists like Nick Drake, only with more feathers and freedom. Perhaps because Goodwin never (and still hasn’t) learned any music theory, each of his songs becomes only the purest form of self-expression. Musically, the songs take on an old folk essence that is somehow simultaneously progressive. Entitling the album “Hymns” couldn’t be more appropriate, as each song sparkles with gems of wisdom.

In the opening track for which the album is titled, Goodwin writes about the irony of growth: “It’s the hymns we lost when we were young, that we now search for beneath the sun.” His voice effortlessly glides through the melody with a sense of whispering childish simplicity. The second track, “Snow,” sounds like crackling ice over a river coming back to life in springtime, with a very tasteful horn section flowing right along with it—a song of longing. “A Kiss For Your Eyes” makes the listener want to cry a little bit, suddenly realizing the abundance of beauty hiding in every living thing. Laura Gibson’s backing vocals on this track are beyond effective when they sing together: “There’s plenty of stars to go around/ so let’s fill our pockets high/ we’ll share them with the business men/ who never look at the sky.”

And so the tracks unfold, in such melancholic acceptance and quietude, revealing that this is the kind of album you lose yourself in so deeply that you emerge forgiven and remembered. ?