Daniel Levi Goans
Location
Greensboro, North Carolina
Genre
Indie Folk, SingerSongwriter, Folk, Indie
Comparison
Bon Iver, Josh Ritter, Bob Dylan, Sufjan Stevens, Arcade Fire
Daniel Levi Goans - @daniellevigoans indie folk singer who recorded in a library on the Chesapeake Bay http://song.ly/2o51g - #CyberPR
Quotes
Everybody has a story, and stories beg to be told. They resonate with something deep in the human soul, drawing us in and evoking thoughts of people and places long forgotten, fondly remembered and even yet to be known. Told to the tune of the rich, Southern acoustic folk music of Greensboro musician Daniel Levi Goans, the stories come to life.
Rebecca Warren, Greensboro News and Record
While you can still hear the James Taylor echoes of North Carolina in Goans' lyrical nostalgia, the raw and plaintive folk overtones are what Choice Cannonballs truly offers, harking back to greats like Dylan himself. By picking out a tightly-knit mix of southern styles, Goans has crafted an eclectic album that can't be let go once you’ve heard it.
Scott Phillips, philosopher
Goans is recording his album, 'Brother Stranger' in an old library in Maryland. The sounds that musician Justin Vernon created while he recorded the album, For Emma, Forever Ago, in a remote cabin inNorthwestern Wisconsin for three months has been an inspiration in Goans’ current project. Like Vernon, Goans uses his surrounding environment, tables and the spines of old leather books, to create earthy sounds.
Abigail Jennings, Arts Council of NC intern
Daniel Goans does not write, mix, perform, and produce his music so much as he mines it. From the days of dowsing rods to metal detectors, to the days of full scale excavations Goans has been pulling songs from a core we all have but few can access.
Andrew Rayle (writer)
The folk-narrative songwriting style of Goans’ first album, “Choice Cannonballs,” is evident in “BrotherStranger.” But it also reflects his growth as a musician since his first release.
Go Triad Music
About Daniel Levi Goans
After seven years of touring and writing with Nashville based outfit The War, Daniel Levi Goans recorded Choice Cannonballs in the heat and humidity of a North Carolina summer in the very basement where he discovered his love for playing music as a child. His early explorations of the piano evolved into an attempt to capture the rich tradition of American folk. The songs are stripped down tributes to the folk storytelling tradition with sparse soundscapes that evoke the feverish density of the summer in which it was recorded.
Goans retreated into a small wooden library overlooking the Chesapeake Bay to record his second solo release. With over 50 songs prepared, he intended to echo the sultry Carolina-Folk accents of his first release, but the rhythms of the tides began to speak into his music. The walls, the shelves, and the spines of the books became a percussive backbone for the songs. The winds whipping in from the bay opened up space for the words to resonate, fortifying the unadulterated honesty of his writing. What was once the beading of moisture and a breeze rolling off the piedmont foothills was now a tempest, a rush of water both beautiful and dangerous.
Heeding to the winds and the waves on the Bay, BrotherStranger looks into the loneliest moments of human experience with a piercing gaze that weaves them into a place of tenderness and safety. These meditations are nestled in a poetic cadence that resists modern cynicism and fragmentation while harkening to a place in our hearts and our heritage that recognizes the sacred nature of narrative. Intrusive in his hope and with penetrating confidence, Goans leaves a peace in the footsteps of his voice, a suggestion that while beauty is often well hidden, it is freely found.
