Christine Owman – Throwing Knives (2011) |
Christine Owman – Throwing Knives
Location: Malmö, Sweden
Album release: July 26, 2011
Record Label: River Jones Music Label / Revolving Records, RJM, Disco Dada
Genre: Indie, Avant-Garde, Film, Experimental, Art
Runtime: 38:54
Tracklisting:
01. Spelling Words 3:51
02. The Conflict 3:50
03. Ffwd 4:35
04. Circles 3:54
05. Dance 3:45
06. The Agreement 4:19
07. I Live I Die 4:01
08. Sinners 3:55
09. Apart 5:28
10. Goodnight 1:15
Credits: Christine Owman on the cello, the ukulele, the saw, the guitar, the bass, the piano, the banjo, the contra bass, the violin, noise and vocals.
Website: http://www.christineowman.com
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/christineowman
Bandcamp: http://christineowman.bandcamp.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/christineowman
± “Spelling Words,” the first song on this 3rd full- length from the Swedish singer/songwriter Christine Owman, begins in a tipsy saw of cello, a regular plink and plunk of banjo, the soft-focus drift of folky female vocals. Traditional sounds turn slightly askew, sheer sonic pleasure turns into something slightly darker and more eccentric, as Owman questions the very nature of human connection, fallibility of human communication. It’s an odd song, seductively soft on the surface but full of sharp, jutting angles, familiar-sounding but, once examined, contrarian and vaguely unsettling. It’s an excellent introduction for Throwing Knives, too, showcasing the wiry, unconventional intelligence of an unusual artist.
± Throwing Knives spends a good bit of its ten tracks on relationships in various stages of disintegration, yet to call it a break-up album is a gross oversimplication. Singing in a soft, blurry voice that verges from folk to pop to electro, she resembles, in her quietude, the Twin Peaks muse Julee Cruise. Still listen to the empowerment in her lyrics, or the potent way she combines electronic and organic elements, and other comparisons emerge – Kristin Hersh, Juliana Hatfield, even Beth Gibbons. Owman sings from a position of strength, a sense that she will be okay regardless of romantic outcomes. She is never, even at her most melancholy and introspective, anyone’s victim. “I won’t take it just cos I love you,” she sings on “The Conflict,” and the line has a bit of a lift to it, a bit of the dance floor’s pulse and heedlessness.
± Owman has been playing the cello since early childhood and has since taught herself to handle a full complement of other instruments – banjo, musical saw, drums, bass, guitar and piano. Her oddest songs, lyrically, are often juxtaposed with down home arrangements. “Circles” is all drum-shuffling, banjo picking blues, Owman’s voice trilling and fluttering around button-downed country rhythms; it also has an entire stanza about masturbation.
± In the softer, more traditional songs, Owman brings in her modern viewpoint subtly, in the lyrics and in the way she works sweetness into confrontation and vice versa. Yet this is also a songwriter who is comfortable with technology, who performs general, in front of a screen showing movies she herself has created. So, it is not surprising that some of her strongest material is abrasive and current, churning industrial-strength dance beats under her delicate, billowy melodies. “Dance,” Owman’s most unadulterated statement of independence, undulates with sensuality, a buzz-saw rhythm under diaphanous lyrics, little gasps of breath punctuating the song’s phrases. “She’s a dancing baby, but she’s not dancing for you,” Owman murmurs. You get the picture of a very modern woman, intrigued by love but not consumed by it, self-sufficient, sexual, and not necessarily available.
± Much of women’s pop and rock seems to be primarily directed at men, packaging femininity in ways that confirm or overturn male-generated stereotypes. Throwing Knives comes at womanhood from the inside, painting a far more complicated, conflicted view that may or may not appeal to the opposite sex. That it’s couched in beautiful, eerie melodies, sometimes delicate, sometimes ragged arrangements, and a dream-like vocal prettiness can only add to the conundrum. Christina Owman is certainly not going for the obvious.
THROWING KNIVES album reviews 2011
"..beautiful, eerie melodies, sometimes delicate, sometimes ragged arrangements, and a dream-like vocal prettiness can only add to the conundrum. Christine Owman is certainly not going for the obvious."
7/10 stars
Jennifer Kelly - Blurt Magazine
"A collection of songs that take us out of the shadows, into the light and back again revealing more on each listen. THROWING KNIVES is an album that would certainly compliment anyone's record collection, created by a performer who - when she graces our shores again - should certainly not be missed. "
Shay Rowan - Von Pip Musical Express
"The album is untouchable and completely free. Listeners will hear Owman reaching for the sky."
Whitney Lewis - Womans Radio
"What an unexpected pleasure from Sweden, this dark-folky, industrially-roughened THROWIN KNIVES...unusually liberated (and liberating), celebrating the autonomy and self-expressive ability of a woman who defines her own place in her relationships"
Jennifer P Kelly - 30 seconds over
Description:
”Robert Plant said he liked what he heard when I supported him at a gig in Stockholm. As a Zeppelin fan this was a big moment for me... ” - Christine Owman
The sound found me this time
After the release of her first album Open Doors (Revolving Records, 2003) Christine Owman started experimenting with sounds, noise, instruments, effect pedals and different ways to record. The flaws and restrictions she encountered in that process became the strength of her sound and a contrast to the flawless, super-produced, and compressed MP3s of today.
She is known for her captivating and unconventional performances and music that is a dichotomous blend of dreamy folk and raw distortion, reverb, bass and noise expressed through clever, uninhibited lyrics. Owman is a young woman eager to express herself without the limitations of conventional boundaries.
Author: Axel Siljebratt / 2009
Author: Axel Siljebratt / 2008
Author: Axel Siljebratt / 2008
Christine Owman 2008
Christine Owman – Throwing Knives (2011) |
Christine Owman – Throwing Knives
Location: Malmö, Sweden
Album release: July 26, 2011
Record Label: River Jones Music Label / Revolving Records, RJM, Disco Dada
Genre: Indie, Avant-Garde, Film, Experimental, Art
Runtime: 38:54
Tracklisting:
01. Spelling Words 3:51
02. The Conflict 3:50
03. Ffwd 4:35
04. Circles 3:54
05. Dance 3:45
06. The Agreement 4:19
07. I Live I Die 4:01
08. Sinners 3:55
09. Apart 5:28
10. Goodnight 1:15
Credits: Christine Owman on the cello, the ukulele, the saw, the guitar, the bass, the piano, the banjo, the contra bass, the violin, noise and vocals.
Website: http://www.christineowman.com
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/christineowman
Bandcamp: http://christineowman.bandcamp.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/christineowman
± “Spelling Words,” the first song on this 3rd full- length from the Swedish singer/songwriter Christine Owman, begins in a tipsy saw of cello, a regular plink and plunk of banjo, the soft-focus drift of folky female vocals. Traditional sounds turn slightly askew, sheer sonic pleasure turns into something slightly darker and more eccentric, as Owman questions the very nature of human connection, fallibility of human communication. It’s an odd song, seductively soft on the surface but full of sharp, jutting angles, familiar-sounding but, once examined, contrarian and vaguely unsettling. It’s an excellent introduction for Throwing Knives, too, showcasing the wiry, unconventional intelligence of an unusual artist.
± Throwing Knives spends a good bit of its ten tracks on relationships in various stages of disintegration, yet to call it a break-up album is a gross oversimplication. Singing in a soft, blurry voice that verges from folk to pop to electro, she resembles, in her quietude, the Twin Peaks muse Julee Cruise. Still listen to the empowerment in her lyrics, or the potent way she combines electronic and organic elements, and other comparisons emerge – Kristin Hersh, Juliana Hatfield, even Beth Gibbons. Owman sings from a position of strength, a sense that she will be okay regardless of romantic outcomes. She is never, even at her most melancholy and introspective, anyone’s victim. “I won’t take it just cos I love you,” she sings on “The Conflict,” and the line has a bit of a lift to it, a bit of the dance floor’s pulse and heedlessness.
± Owman has been playing the cello since early childhood and has since taught herself to handle a full complement of other instruments – banjo, musical saw, drums, bass, guitar and piano. Her oddest songs, lyrically, are often juxtaposed with down home arrangements. “Circles” is all drum-shuffling, banjo picking blues, Owman’s voice trilling and fluttering around button-downed country rhythms; it also has an entire stanza about masturbation.
± In the softer, more traditional songs, Owman brings in her modern viewpoint subtly, in the lyrics and in the way she works sweetness into confrontation and vice versa. Yet this is also a songwriter who is comfortable with technology, who performs general, in front of a screen showing movies she herself has created. So, it is not surprising that some of her strongest material is abrasive and current, churning industrial-strength dance beats under her delicate, billowy melodies. “Dance,” Owman’s most unadulterated statement of independence, undulates with sensuality, a buzz-saw rhythm under diaphanous lyrics, little gasps of breath punctuating the song’s phrases. “She’s a dancing baby, but she’s not dancing for you,” Owman murmurs. You get the picture of a very modern woman, intrigued by love but not consumed by it, self-sufficient, sexual, and not necessarily available.
± Much of women’s pop and rock seems to be primarily directed at men, packaging femininity in ways that confirm or overturn male-generated stereotypes. Throwing Knives comes at womanhood from the inside, painting a far more complicated, conflicted view that may or may not appeal to the opposite sex. That it’s couched in beautiful, eerie melodies, sometimes delicate, sometimes ragged arrangements, and a dream-like vocal prettiness can only add to the conundrum. Christina Owman is certainly not going for the obvious.
THROWING KNIVES album reviews 2011
"..beautiful, eerie melodies, sometimes delicate, sometimes ragged arrangements, and a dream-like vocal prettiness can only add to the conundrum. Christine Owman is certainly not going for the obvious."
7/10 stars
Jennifer Kelly - Blurt Magazine
"A collection of songs that take us out of the shadows, into the light and back again revealing more on each listen. THROWING KNIVES is an album that would certainly compliment anyone's record collection, created by a performer who - when she graces our shores again - should certainly not be missed. "
Shay Rowan - Von Pip Musical Express
"The album is untouchable and completely free. Listeners will hear Owman reaching for the sky."
Whitney Lewis - Womans Radio
"What an unexpected pleasure from Sweden, this dark-folky, industrially-roughened THROWIN KNIVES...unusually liberated (and liberating), celebrating the autonomy and self-expressive ability of a woman who defines her own place in her relationships"
Jennifer P Kelly - 30 seconds over
Description:
”Robert Plant said he liked what he heard when I supported him at a gig in Stockholm. As a Zeppelin fan this was a big moment for me... ” - Christine Owman
The sound found me this time
After the release of her first album Open Doors (Revolving Records, 2003) Christine Owman started experimenting with sounds, noise, instruments, effect pedals and different ways to record. The flaws and restrictions she encountered in that process became the strength of her sound and a contrast to the flawless, super-produced, and compressed MP3s of today.
She is known for her captivating and unconventional performances and music that is a dichotomous blend of dreamy folk and raw distortion, reverb, bass and noise expressed through clever, uninhibited lyrics. Owman is a young woman eager to express herself without the limitations of conventional boundaries.
Author: Axel Siljebratt / 2009
Author: Axel Siljebratt / 2008
Author: Axel Siljebratt / 2008
Christine Owman 2008