After nearly 2 years of pandemic induced lockdown and isolation, award winning Scottish singer songwriter Dean Owens is over the moon to finally announce the release of his highly anticipated Sinner’s Shrine album, recorded with musicians from iconic desert noir Latin rockers Calexico at WaveLab Studio in Tucson (in Jan 2020). The album is a joint release by London’s Eel Pie Records and Continental Record Services (Netherlands) on 18 Feb 2022. The vinyl release will follow on 2 May.
Sinner’s Shrine is the latest stop on a lifetime’s journey - from the post industrial heartlands of Scotland to the untrammelled wide-open vistas of the American Southwest – as Dean surrenders to the intoxicating sounds of the US desert states. It’s apparent from the opening song, Arizona, which positively bristles with the horn section duelling with guitar along with keening pedal steel, as Owens sets out his vision of a territory defined by a border, by barbed wire, by bustling barrios and wild panoramic desert spaces, a territory which has long captured his heart.
There’s the sensual Cumbia influenced 'Land Of The Hummingbird' which has Owens duetting with Gaby Moreno and the Tex-Mex trails of 'We Need Us' with its Farfisa organ swirls, Joey Burns’ guttural guitar and sweeping mariachi horns. On 'The Barbed Wire’s Still Weeping', Owens harnesses the full power of Calexico to unleash an epic and portentous song, while 'La Lomita' also finds Calexico in full sway, the song as bustling and busy as a Mexican street market as Owens reflects on places of sanctuary and border walls. Themes of love and lust, sinners and saints, the displaced, the wanderers and the border ghosts run through the album (Owens’ 8th (official) solo release) like the desert sands.
The first single will be 'After The Rain', released 4th Feb, an old song revisited. It’s fitting that it was recorded in the land of photographer Ansel Adams, as it was one of his prints which originally inspired Owens to write the song. A gentle love song with a sense of hope for the future that resonates in 2022.
TRACK LISTING
1. Arizona (3:31)
2. The Hopeless Ghosts (feat Grant-Lee Phillips) (03:49)
3. New Mexico (03:14)
4. Compañera (03:30)
5. Here Comes Paul Newman (01:31)
6. The Barbed Wire’s Still Weeping (03:41)
7. La Lomita (04:56)
8. Land Of The Hummingbird (feat Gaby Moreno) (03:58)
9. We Need Us (03:42)
10. Summer In Your Eyes (03:43)
11. After The Rain (03:45)
Sinner’s Shrine is the latest stop on a lifetime’s journey - from the post industrial heartlands of Scotland to the untrammelled wide-open vistas of the American Southwest – as Dean surrenders to the intoxicating sounds of the US desert states. It’s apparent from the opening song, Arizona, which positively bristles with the horn section duelling with guitar along with keening pedal steel, as Owens sets out his vision of a territory defined by a border, by barbed wire, by bustling barrios and wild panoramic desert spaces, a territory which has long captured his heart.
There’s the sensual Cumbia influenced 'Land Of The Hummingbird' which has Owens duetting with Gaby Moreno and the Tex-Mex trails of 'We Need Us' with its Farfisa organ swirls, Joey Burns’ guttural guitar and sweeping mariachi horns. On 'The Barbed Wire’s Still Weeping', Owens harnesses the full power of Calexico to unleash an epic and portentous song, while 'La Lomita' also finds Calexico in full sway, the song as bustling and busy as a Mexican street market as Owens reflects on places of sanctuary and border walls. Themes of love and lust, sinners and saints, the displaced, the wanderers and the border ghosts run through the album (Owens’ 8th (official) solo release) like the desert sands.
The first single will be 'After The Rain', released 4th Feb, an old song revisited. It’s fitting that it was recorded in the land of photographer Ansel Adams, as it was one of his prints which originally inspired Owens to write the song. A gentle love song with a sense of hope for the future that resonates in 2022.
TRACK LISTING
1. Arizona (3:31)
2. The Hopeless Ghosts (feat Grant-Lee Phillips) (03:49)
3. New Mexico (03:14)
4. Compañera (03:30)
5. Here Comes Paul Newman (01:31)
6. The Barbed Wire’s Still Weeping (03:41)
7. La Lomita (04:56)
8. Land Of The Hummingbird (feat Gaby Moreno) (03:58)
9. We Need Us (03:42)
10. Summer In Your Eyes (03:43)
11. After The Rain (03:45)
