An Open Letter to Krist Krueger Effusing about Southerly's Storyteller and the Gossip Columnist

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Dear Krist Krueger—founding member of Southerly,

I know it’s been a year since you released Storyteller & the Gossip Columnist, the wonderful follow up to 2004’s Best Dressed and Expressionless, but it was just today that the music and my life came together to show the beauty in having Storyteller as a soundtrack for life.

It’s raining like crazy today—spring storms and gray skies with no end in sight. A brooding, rolling, internalized kind of music is what I need.

With Storyteller as my soundtrack, I was transported back to a high school band trip to England in 1989 riding around on a bus in the spring rains under grey skies. Southerly is the music that could’ve been in my ears as my head was against the bus window watching the lane lines fly by. The music is sad with racing emotions about love and loss but also rises up like the excitement of travel and adventure.

Of course, in 1989, my headphones were filled with the Smiths, the Church, the House of Love, and the Railway Children. While Southerly is more of a folk-influenced grooving rock with the atmospheric narrative of the Tragically Hip, still I hear in Southerly the same emotional sentiment of my 1989 English set. Southerly is grey, complex, orchestrated, deep daydreaming.

Thank you for taking me back to those moments, Krist. Thank you for creating an album that works so well as a soundtrack for life—a day to stand outside in the rain in the face of the wind and embrace all the swirling, conflicted, disparate poles of emotion that whip around my heart.

Sincerely,
Ben


Greyday Records
Southerly