Gwyneth Moreland’s Ceiling Floors And Open Doors Out November 18th

Introducing Gwyneth Moreland – New Album Ceiling Floors and Open Doors out Nov. 18

Gwyneth Moreland tells a familiar story in her songs that invokes pleasant memory but doesn’t let off the energy so as not to get lost in dreamy nostalgia. Growing up in the rural town of Mendocino, CA, the rugged damp coast makes influence on many of her songs. “It can feel very lonely here at times, but for me, that solitude creates an opportunity to write and reflect.”

The beauty of musical simplicity is what allows Moreland to astound listeners with her magical voice. The trusty churning string instrumentation lays foundation for her to decorate the landscape of each song and bring all of us with her.

The upright bass of David Hayes bounces melodic melancholy throughout Moreland’s latest album, Ceilings Floors and Open Doors. “Slaughterhouse Gulch” explains the scene of her songwriting for the album in the town she grew up in and draws parallels between cyclical nature of the environment and her creativity.

“Little Black Flies” is an account of Moreland’s travel and losing a loved one to distance. You can hear more mountains and less ocean on this track, the instrumentation is simple yet full with just guitar and bass trading glimpses of emotion. An ode to country and western, Moreland’s reflection on her past growing up in a house where music, not television, was the sole source of entertainment.

After 13 years of performance, the end of Moreland’s third full-length album brings us right back home, looking out over the Pacific Ocean. The foggy damp bass line and slow churning acoustic strums of “Pine Box Sailor” is about an end result, not just of the album, but of a journey that has brought Moreland through countless pubs, bars and coffee shops.

“The sound of the buoy calling and the Pacific crashing on the steep, jagged rocks was the soundtrack to my childhood and still pours in my windows today as I sit and write.”

Inspired by artists like Billie Holiday and Nanci Griffith, Moreland describes her music as folk with jazz influences. Ceilings Floors and Open Doors was recorded fantastically unadulterated without overdubs and minimal production. Moreland says that they recorded with two microphones and the door open seizing the ambient noise from outside.

“I live in a converted garage perched on an embankment looking over a creek called Slaughterhouse Gulch. The forest I live in is full of wildlife that wakes me up at all hours of the night. Lately there has been a bobcat in the gulch yowling, it sounds like something from a horror film. I like to call it “the girl in the gulch.”

The folk, Americana sound comes from Moreland herself, but the jazz influences that seep in come from her bassist David Hayes (Van Morrison), who also engineered, mixed, and recorded the album at his home studio, lovingly called “The Shack In The Back”. The melody and time that Hayes brings to the recordings create nuances that highlight the very lyrically based songs, giving them color and breadth.

Many of Moreland’s songs are about leaving home, of which Moreland is no stranger. The time she has put in both on the road and in her home-studio make for the most valuable training, and schooling in her opinion. Moreland only wants to make people feel something when she plays. From the friendships that come out of meeting other independent musicians on the road to music she plays is for her audience, Gwyneth Moreland lives and loves the unpredictability of each day and does a remarkable job of capturing the fluidity of life in her music.