I briefly mentioned Owen in this post. Owen is the solo project of Chicago’s Mike Kinsella. He also has a number of other bands, one of which is American Football. It took me another week or so to stop exclusively listening to Owen’s latest record and give American Football a listen, but once I did…I can’t stop. This record is just everything I like in music.
The clean guitars, the snare drum ghost notes, the layered vocals including the occasional guest female vocalists, sometimes with a brilliant call-and-response style, the mallets, the lyrics. I’ve been listening to this record most of the time I’ve been listening to music for the last couple of weeks. I’ve listened to their previous release a few times too, but it’s really this most recent record that has me.
I need to check out his other projects, too, obviously. But it’s been a long time since I’ve been this enamored with a record.