Owen- Ghost Town
As a warning to anyone who doesn’t know anything about Owen, or Mike Kinsella’s previous projects, they can be difficult to write about. And not because they’re bad or challenging aurally, but because they’re incredibly emotional and thus create a difficult barrier when trying to convey your opinions. Anyone who’s listened to songs like ‘Bed Abuse’ from I Do Percieve or ‘Bad News’ from At Home With… know what I mean. Or anyone who knows about American Football. I’m sure some people are reading this and wondering ‘Who the fuck are these bands?’ and well, that’s another post for another day. Also, thanks to my dear friend Mimmers, I’m able to listen to this all day today.
In typical Kinsella fashion, Mike gives us a wash of noodley acoustic guitar over small arragements, organs, simple drum patterns, and his disarmingly sincere vocals. Some people slam Owen for the fact that with every release, it becomes sort of the same over and over again. While I can follow that logic with his previous release, New Leaves, which was honestly a bit of a disappointment, Ghost Town, is in no way shape or form New Leaves. Sharing some of the production qualities, distorted guitar melodies over washy synth pads and Mike’s guitar, the songs are above and beyond better than 90% of the previous release. What it honestly boils down to is the fact that Mike Kinsella’s music has a distinct aesthetic, whether you like it or not. Songs like ‘O, Evelyn’, a song for his daughter (Featured on a 7” backed with a cover of The Smiths’ ‘Girlfriend In A Coma’ for Record Store Day 2011), and ‘I Believe’ are obviously (in my opinion) the best songs on the record and most indicative of that aesthetic.
And honestly that probably sounds like a load of boring, musical criticism. And it sounds a little like that to me. As much as that’s not the direction I’d like for this blog to go in, that seems to be the case here. Talking in circles isn’t helping you out nor is it making me seem clear. Ghost Town is the next logical step in Mike Kinsella’s musical time line. Uniquely him and yet it falls in line with his old tips and tricks and plays on a lot of Mike’s “format”.
I highly recommend the release all in all, I find it to be a more satisfying listen than the prior LP. Out soon on Polyvinyl records.
