At Home with Owen in Bloomington, MN

Owen
is
Mike Kinsella
, who is associated with such Chicago
indie rock
phenoms as
American Football
,
Cap'n Jazz
, and
Joan of Arc
. On his own, he creates dreamy, new-millennium bedroom
folk
dotted with all kinds of modernistic and ancient traces, such as loops, cello, piano, and sparse percussion.
Kinsella
is the sole auteur here, whipping up an album that sometimes leans toward such ruminative, creative songwriters as
Mark Kozelek
and
Elliott Smith
.
's pretty dirges don't come off as
lo-fi
, though; in fact, there is a surprising depth of layered textures here, in which acoustic guitar and other ephemera provide an expansive bed for
's often homely yet pleasing hush of a voice. The instrumentation in
"One of These Days"
has a bucolic richness, fleshed out with spare piano plunkings and cello, while the excellent
"Sad Waltzes of Pietro Crespi"
pins nimble acoustic guitar runs against
's plaintive musings on love.
At Home with Owen
has a contemplative, Sunday morning feel to it; it is a strong effort in which themes of yearning and wishful thinking pass dreamily across lovely musical textures, like rain on a windshield. ~ Erik Hage