OWEN
Aiken Promotions presents
OWEN
plus support PADDY HANNA ^ Upstairs ^
Tickets on sale Friday 4th August at 10am priced €15 from www.whelanslive.com
Owen – the acclaimed solo musical guise of singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Mike Kinsella – has made an astonishing leap forward with The King of Whys, the first work in his two-decade-plus career to be made entirely outside of the greater Chicagoland area. The album is Owen’s most inspired and evocative thus far, interpolating a group dynamic into what has long been an intensely intimate sound.
Still eager to push Owen’s hermetic parameters, Kinsella enlisted producer S. Carey – frequent collaborator of Bon Iver, Sufjan Stevens, Mason Jennings and acclaimed solo artist in his own right – to helm the album, the two like-minded artists having first met as Carey supported a handful of dates on American Football’s 2014 reunion tour. Where Owen’s prior outings were almost entirely performed by Kinsella on his own, Carey brought in some of the Badger State’s finest players to add new flesh to his bare-boned songcraft. Kinsella, as usual, is up front on guitar, vocals, bass, drums, and bells, accompanied by Carey (keyboards, vocals, drums, bells) and such WI musicians as Zach Hanson, who also served as engineer on the record, violist Michael Noyce, pedal steel guitarist/keyboard player Ben Lester, horns player Andy Hofer, and bassist Jeremy Botcher, all of whom share credits including Bon Iver, S. Carey, and The Tallest Man On Earth. Together the combo crafts an expansive but still grounded backdrop for Kinsella’s candid confessionals.
The process itself was unlike previous Owen recordings in that Kinsella was for the first time able to let go of various instrumentation, allowing his fellow musicians to carry some of the weight only he previously bore. The sheer songcraft on The King of Whys more than warrants the expanded production, Kinsella dissecting his own foibles and familial relationships with caustic wit and a mordant sense of self-awareness. “Lovers Come And Go” and the elegiac “Saltwater” see the songwriter processing his experiences as he approaches the big four-oh, using his art to learn how to be a better father and husband.
An intimate singer/songwriter album recorded under contemporary circumstances, The King of Whys utilizes progressive techniques, song structures, and time signatures, but Owen’s introspective humanity is timeless. Having made music for a very long time, Mike Kinsella continues to push himself towards transcendence with honesty, artistic ambition, and a sense of real circumstance.
TICKETS
€15 available online from WAV Tickets or Lo-Call 1890 200 078 (1-7pm M-F)
– 50c per ticket service charge applies on phone, internet or credit card bookings. Final ticket price may be higher from other outlets. Strictly over 18′s, I.D. may be required