andreas owens – bad4you (Spotify)
“Are you looking for some light sound after a busy, tiring day? Then, we strongly recommend Andreas Owens new single. Alternative style with pleasant touch and expressive singing. The suitable elixir for your ears and mind relaxation is just ready.”
-Nagamag.com
Los Angeles-based producer and singer-songwriter andreas owens releases his 5-track debut EP, aptly titled almost everything i've ever wanted to say, an intimate and vulnerable R&B-infused pop record showcasing his ingenious and versatile songwriting. The EP follows a series of singles – “don’t feel happy”, “falling & falling”, and “not much (better than before)” – all of which received high praise by the likes of publications Banger Of The Day, Before The Data, DUMMY Mag, Fashionably Early, Substream Magazine, and We Found New Music; inevitably landing editorial placements on Spotify (Fresh Finds, Fresh Finds: Pop, and Study Break) and TIDAL (Rising: Pop).
soundcloud.com/andreasowensmp3/sets/almost-everything-ive-ever-wanted-to-say/s-zgQcVaFjAGC
QUOTE
“‘almost everything i’ve ever wanted to say’ is truthfully that — it is in every way, nearly everything I’ve ever wanted to say musically, lyrically, sonically, experimentally, and emotionally. For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to create and complete a work like this; something where I’ve sat in my room and slowly worked from beginning to end without any real goal in mind. Almost like I’m reading a book about my life, piecing together one experience after another but not quite knowing where or how the story ends.”
-andreas owens
'almost everything i've ever wanted to say'
The mentality and overall vision behind andreas owens has been pretty different to that of The Millennial Club. Ironically, the biggest distinction between the two projects lies less in the final product, but more so within the creative process itself.
Adapting an “anything goes” mindset helped facilitate a lack of pressure to fit within a specific genre and andreas owens quickly found himself enjoying the refreshing freedom present in creating without convention. This unadulterated creative energy ultimately led to the birth of almost everything i’ve ever wanted to say: a diverse and genre-blending EP that not only reflects his personal growth as a songwriter and producer, but surely defines his personal footprint as a truly generational artist.
BIOGRAPHY
andreas owens is the solo project of Los Angeles-based producer and multi-instrumentalist Andres Owens, the lead vocalist of indie pop and R&B band The Millennial Club. Delicately blending intimate vocals with unabashedly ‘pop’ backbeats, the So-Cal native has been slowly but steadily building a catalogue of truly unique material. Embracing the ever-evolving notion of bedroom pop, everything is written, recorded, and produced in his (tiny) bedroom-turned-studio.
In his own words, “It’s the only way I’ve found it to feel authentically myself. The safe, familiar space is the catalyst for facilitating something visceral and unapologetically my own. It allows me to release my compulsive ‘perfectionist mindset’ and instead create with the understanding that mistakes are inevitably a unique and beautiful part of the process that makes it my own.”
Track Commentary by andreas owens
“bad4you”
“‘bad4you’ is likely the first song I’ve ever written where I can truly say I understood the significance of every sonic and conceptual decision. I’m not sure why, but with ‘bad4you’ in particular, I felt like something just clicked and suddenly everything made sense to my brain. Writing and arranging the song became less about convention and expectation, and more about what I felt the song needed, throwing caution to the wind, and consciously letting the song finish itself. I think in doing that – in a sense, giving myself to the song and not trying to dictate its final form – I found a place of comfort knowing I wasn’t forcing anything into the track that perhaps didn’t belong. Through the process I think it came into focus that production is, in every sense, a language, and producing ‘bad4you’ really helped widen my vocabulary.”
Reviewed by Nagamag on July 22, 2021