Back in 2012 eclectic singer-songwriter Kyle Adem made the very upper echelons of our end-of-year best of lists with Brother Follow. Now he records as Adeem the Artist and his latest release is The Owl, a four track concept album about a doomed couple who find meaning in the Dead Kennedy’s, I Am The Owl as their chosen mythos.

Sitting somewhere between Conor Oberst and the Mountain Goats, his wonderful mix of Americana, folk, and beguiling indie-pop is still present and foremost, as are the lyrics that often unflinchingly spill over into darkness and despair.

Of the new record he says, “It follows a couple named Diego and Christine as they cope with injustice by way of addiction. It is an exploration of how the music we listen to frames and gives meaning to our personal experiences. It’s a tragic short story that takes place in Syracuse, NY where I spent the latter part of my youth and what you could call a rough draft at adulthood. Thus it is fiction imbued with memories. . . “

Check out And Your Body (“Searched the house to find the last few hydrocodone I had left, Wondering how many of our friends were probably dead, I sat and heard your desperate pleas until it was just me, And your body“), and then listen to album closer Imagine We Are Infinite with it’s wonderful opening “We sprayed the leaves in PCP, Carved a pipe from a zucchini“.

You get the picture. Buy from Bandcamp here.

 

 

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