This week sees the release of Kezia Gill’s long-awaited debut album, The Adventures Of A Travelling Mind, which has had quite a gestation period!
Kezia is a superb singer who has been writing songs and performing all her life, and it shows. She turned up to record some demos in January 2012 and the casual ease with which she knocked out the lead vocal for Easy Come Easy Go in ONE TAKE floored me. At the end of the take I literally didn’t quite know what to say. “Yes, that was very good” didn’t quite cut it…
By the end of that session we had Easy Come Easy Go, Walk Away and Goodbye recorded as sparse acoustic demos. All three songs were beautifully written and the lyrics stood out as being pretty special, especially for a female audience. Given the quality of these tracks I was convinced that she had a superb album in her and I badgered her for more songs. She sent me about 20 demos; I fished out the best five and then told her to write two more.
We then set about recording, arranging and editing the 10 songs over spring. Kezia sang all the vocals and played acoustic guitar, piano and tin whistle. I contributed drums, bass, electric guitar, percussion and synths. The initial idea was to keep things simple; acoustic upbeat pop. But it soon became apparent that both of were up for trying new things so the album touched on various different styles to showcase Kezia’s canny vocal ability, including country blues (Adventures Of A Travelling Mind) and even a sly touch of R&B (Distraction).
However, the style I think we pulled of best was a very anthemic, experimental, kitchen-sink type sound that we used on Walk Away and Back Out. I loved the fact that there were no rules and whatever worked made the record.
It was a relaxed album to put together; we were constantly inspired, shared a similar sense of humour and it’s a testament to our working relationship that we only ever disagreed about one thing in the whole album; Kezia’s piano part in the last few seconds of Easy Come Easy Go. She loves it; I thought it sounded too upbeat and jazz-hands for the song. What do you think?
Download the album here or get in touch with Kezia here for a physical copy.
By Ben Haynes