Owen Temple – Mountain Home
Label: El Paisano Records
Austin-based folk and country music songwriter and musician Owen Temple is doing what he’s always done — staying focused on his music and letting the world discover his take on the post-modern cowboy. Mountain Home, his sixth studio record is a collection of ten songs about unconventional individuals living uncommon lives on the edge, on the fringe of society.
In other words, Owen Temple is carrying on the Texas Hill Country tradition of storytelling with music. Are Owen Temple’s songs music set to prose — or are they words set to tunes? It’s hard to tell, but the distinction matters little when the result is a portrait as vivid as this:
“Chrome wheels of Oldsmobiles’ trunks are filled
With contraband so please don’t tell Uncle Sam
At the Tower Motel,
They won’t tell what they sell,
Word gets around,
When a car explodes it shakes the ground…”
(from “Jackboro Highway,” by Owen Temple & Adam Carroll)
Produced by Gabe Rhodes, the album reflects Rhodes’ impeccable taste in instrumentation; each track finds the perfect balance between Temple and the supporting musicians. The album often sounds as if it captured a live performance, making good use of contributions from Charlie Sexton on bass and baritone guitar, Bukka Allen on keyboards, Tommy Spurlock on pedal steel, and drummer Rick Richards.
Owen Temple has established himself as an artist keenly perceptive of the interplay between people and their surroundings. His albums play with the notion of atmospheric perception. With Mountain Home he continues his observations with customary precision. Mountain Home is a roadmap of the places often passed-through without too much thought (and even less personal investigation). But Owen Temple’s artistic impulse to get down the stories of the people in these places makes for an unpredictable and satisfying musical journey that you will not soon forget.
My personal favorite of these gritty, glorious words set to music – “Desdemona”…
As you may know, in the past 2 weeks, wildfires have scorched over 300,000 acres in West Texas. More than 60 homes have burned, as have countless animals, miles of fences, and much agricultural property. Brave firefighters have lost their lives battling the blazes. Wildfire conditions have been made worse by high winds and the extreme statewide drought, and right now, the extended weather outlook doesn’t show any significant rain in sight.
Because West Texas gave Owen Temple the stories and inspiration behind the songs on his new album, he wants to help give back a little to those who lost homes and property. For the next 30 days, for every purchase of the Mountain Home album through Owen Temple’s website (the album’s release date is Tuesday, April 26, but you may pre-order it), 100% of the profits will go toward wildfire relief (to the Jeff Davis County Relief Fund and to the State of Texas Agriculture Relief Fund). Click here for details.
Click here to visit Owen’s website, where you can get a free digital download of “One Day Closer To The Rain.” It’s a song that Owen wrote as a kind of a prayer during Texas’ last severe drought. Let’s hope he doesn’t get more of this type of inspiration… and let’s hope he keeps on making site-specific songs as satisfying as these.
