Remi Goode

At its most expansive, Things I’ve Said Before is a band record, its songs laced with light layers of fiddle, entwined guitars, groove, and stacked vocal harmonies. Those arrangements came together as Remi, Gabe, and their small band of ASU music students performed around the southwest during the early 2020s, turning songs like “Posterity” and “Return To Sender” into combinations of full-bodied folk and alternative Americana. Like all of her material, Remi had written those songs alone, using her ear — rather than her knowledge of theory — to guide the way. Things I’ve Said Before finds a way to highlight that intimacy, too. Tracks like “Don’t Drive Me Home” and “Overseas” showcase Remi not only as the frontwoman of an amplified band, but as a solo artist who makes music for rainy days and quiet mornings. These are the record’s two halves — the warm, acoustic-heavy folksongs, most of which were recorded at home; and the eclectic, electrified tracks that cast a wider net, most of which were tracked by a live band in a professional studio — and they come together on “Punchline.” Opening with thick stacks of Remi’s own multi-tracked vocal harmonies, “Punchline” grows into something bigger with help from the entire ensemble. It’s the sound of the bedroom giving way to the band.

“We wanted the album to be kaleidoscopic,” says Gabe, who shares guitar duties with Remi throughout the album, their two instruments interlocking and entwining into unique shapes on songs like the airily buoyant “Might Not Be True.” “We get bored of records that just have one sound.”

There’s nothing boring about Things I’ve Said Before, whose diversity is tied together by Remi’s songwriting and effortless voice. A lifelong singer, she pushes her vocals into unique directions, from the jazzy inflections of “Don’t Drive Me Home” — a warm, woozy track with finger-plucked guitar arpeggios and a soundscape-worthy outro — to the conversational croon of “For the Record.” She duets with Gabe on “Waltz, No. 1,” swapping harmonies during one of the album’s loveliest songs. Her nylon-string guitar serves as its own voice, too, and its plucked chords run beneath the entire record, adding movement to her melodies and grounding everything in an earthy sound.

“When I’m writing music, I’m just following a whim or a melody,” Remi says. “I’m not trying to use my classical training or my knowledge of theory, because when you do that, it’s easy to overthink things. You can get in your own way when you know too much about the theory of what you’re doing.”

Much of Things I’ve Said Before finds Remi in a reflective mood, coming to terms with her role as an artist. “I wrote these songs while learning to consider myself a songwriter,” she says, describing the album as “my journey of exploration as an artist when I didn’t feel like one yet.” The lyrics are filled with paradoxes, puzzles, and multiple perspectives, with Remi attempting to rid herself of black-and-white thinking and, instead, embrace the grey areas in her life. “With each song,” she explains, “I make an effort to get to the truth about a dynamic or situation with a person in my life. Rather than choosing a side or coming to a singular conclusion, the lyrics tend to lean into contradiction and ambivalence. I hope that, as a songwriter, I’m able to show that we can find clarity and understanding while leaving some things unreconciled.”

Independently created and richly inspired, Things I’ve Said Before captures a young songwriter in evolution, nodding to the classical training and folky favorites of her past while pushing toward a wider sound. This is Remi Goode: self-assured, inspired by her roots, and headed toward something new.

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