My Own Company

My Own Company is Kiely Connell’s sophomore album that is a continuation of where her debut album Calumet Queen left off. My Own Company re/ects where her life is at 34 after being in Nashville for a decade. Mental health is the overarching theme of the album’s 10 songs.

The album was produced by Tucker Martine (The Avett Brothers, Rosanne Cash, Aoife O’Donovan, The Decemberists) who captured a country, Americana sound with pop elements. Kiely wrote “Through To You” and “Anesthesia” and is the co-writer on the remaining songs.

Much like my literary heroes Gaiman, Baudelaire, Poe, & Sexton, I find beauty in the darker elements of the human experience. In my mind the goths and the confessional poets had the right idea. Themes of loneliness, mental health, and journeying into the unknown spiritually and physically are all extremely relatable and I want to be the kind of artist who calls it like I see it. I want to make people feel less alone in their pain, or in knowing that it’s ok to not have all of the answers. Growing up amidst the looming factories and deserted towns in the rustbelt of northwest Indiana, I’ve seen the hardworking people working for a system that doesn’t always work for them. I want to represent them with strength and determination. Every year we would visit my grandmother out in Arizona which has to be where my true love of all things western comes from. In the extreme conditions of the desert it’s very difficult for plant and animal life to survive, and yet somehow it does. I find that incredibly inspiring. I want to be an artist who finds beauty in unlikely places and be unafraid to conquer the unknown like the cowboys in the old west.