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Feb 28, 2024 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Nelson Kempf

Indie singer/songwriter Keeley Boyle has been moving through various music scenes for years, first in her native Alaska, then in Portland and Nashville. Most recently, while dealing with a bout of persistent writer’s block she returned to her hometown of Kenai, Alaska, a town with a population of only 7500 people. It was in this locale, in the midst of Alaska’s cold and dark winter, that Boyle began to write her forthcoming debut solo EP, Inviting, due out on April 19th of this year.

“I made this record when I was learning how to appreciate winter up here,” she says. I think I really bonded with it, sort of out of necessity because I was very sad…I don’t think the songs would be the same if I had written them anywhere else. As a family we spent a lot of time outside by the ocean and river, watching ice drift or belugas come in with the tide. I feel like the environment here found its way into every song.”

Today, along with news of the EP, she is also sharing the EP’s lead single and title track, “Inviting,” premiering with Under the Radar.

“Inviting” shows off the depths of sound and feeling at play within Boyle’s music, beginning in a sparse and icy mode before the track thaws into a warm sun-lit sprawl. Chiming acoustic tones introduce the track, echoing into space before Boyle’s airy vocals join, accompanied by jazzy bass, swells of sax, and iridescent synths. As the song goes on, the mix steadily fills with an inviting swirl of instrumentation, mirroring the intimate tone and effortless warmth of the lyrics. In turn, these lyrics find Boyle pining for not only the warmth of springtime but also the change and rebirth it represents: “For more than half of the year / There’s a field of ice out your window / It’s waiting on warmer winds / To breath its name / I’m trying for something like that / I want to soften and change / Into a body that’s everything / Something inviting.”

Boyle says of the track, “‘Inviting’ took shape during ‘break up’ in Alaska. It’s the time of year when snow berms melt and pool into parking lots, rivers and lakes break free of ice, everything is dripping, wet, and dirty. After many months of winter I find this season thrilling. The year I wrote “Inviting,” the seasonal depression I experience annually culminated as all the mess and motion that comes with melting began around me. It was such a comfort to witness, to remember that things change, change dramatically, that I would feel different in the future.

I began recording ‘Inviting’ in Kenai, and finished it years later in Anchorage. I produced the song and played synths and guitar. My husband Nelson Kempf engineered and played electric guitar. Joseph Shabason played saxophone, Abbey Blackwell played bass and Machado Mijiga’s drums were sampled for the choruses. It was mixed by Joseph Shabason.”

Check out the song below. The Inviting EP is due out on April 19th.