After sharing the singles "Bleed" and "Michigan Nights," Canadian singer/songwriter Chris Gostling releases his latest album Forest City Town Country today on Bandcamp, Spotify and Apple Music.

Forest City Town Country is the long-overdue follow-up to 2016’s Breath, Blood & Tempo, made when Gostling was living in Toronto and maintaining a busy schedule within the city's club scene. However, in recent years Gostling fulfilled his dream of moving to rural eastern Ontario with his partner and establishing a home base for their shared creative pursuits.

Those changes can be heard on Forest City Town Country, recorded with an accomplished team based on Wolfe Island, near Kingston, that includes all-star CanRock keyboardist Hugh Christopher Brown, bassist Jason Mercer (Ani Difranco, Ron Sexsmith), drummer Liam Cole (Kate Fenner, Stephen Stanley), and the album’s co-producer/engineer Jake Bury.

Gostling explains that leaving Toronto ushered in, “a great time of creativity and songwriting. By this past January, I knew I had eight strong tracks ready to record. I wanted to work with Chris and Jake because I really loved the sound they've pulled off with the artists on their Wolfe Island label.”

Along with feeling a sense of satisfaction in recording near his new home, Gostling says that playing shows in the area motivated him to embrace new songwriting approaches that blossomed with the help of his collaborators.

In all, Gostling considers Forest City Town Country a major step forward in his evolution as a singer/songwriter, and his most accomplished work to date. “I think I have moved past a lot of the tropes that we all start with as writers,” he says. “I spent two years taking weekly piano and music theory lessons just before I left Toronto, which was wild after 26 years of being a basically self taught musician. Lyrically I also feel that I have made a lot of progress.

"But my wife Laura is my main inspiration, and my best editor. As a fellow creative, she really pushed me to try things fearlessly, be flexible, and ultimately be confident in what I was committing to. Those are the things that provided the foundation for this album, and hopefully everything I do from now on.”

01 Alice (Winter Is All But Gone)
02 Bleed
03 The Lesson
04 Hardened Hearts
05 Quarter Killing Time
06 Michigan Nights
07 Punk Rock Noises
08 Colder Without You