Christoper Owens – ‘Lysandre’s Theme/ Here We Go’

And so Girls are gone. A band, who’s last UK gig I happened to have attended, who specialised in melodic, melodramatic, uncategorizeable pop beauty (and a song entitled ‘Vomit’) are sadly no more. However, fans of Girls need shed not another single tear. Christopher Owens, chief architect of Girls, has announced his first solo album. To be released at the turn of the new year, ‘Lysandre’ is a concept album, documenting Owens’ life,  from pre Girls San Francisco through to the present day and is named after a girl Owens fell in love with during this period of time. Owens has laid out the record’s manifesto as “A coming of age story, a road trip story, a love story.” The first cuts from the album is ‘Lysandre’s Theme/ Here We Go’, numbers 1 & 2 on the record’s tracklisting. The tracks, which flow seemlessly one into the next, come as one and resemble a medieval folk number before blossoming into a signature Owens composition. Beautifully plucked acoustic guitar provides the tide on which Owens’ vocals float; his voice is soft, almost sleep inducing in its smoothness. There still remains the odd jagged guitar line which some of the more raucous Girls tracks included but the overall feel of this debut solo effort is melancholic reminiscence and it really is a thing of beauty. A song released in the depths of winter reminds of the turn of spring into summer and then summer into autumn. If these seasonal transitions had a soundtrack, ‘Lysandre’s Theme/ Here We Go’ would be my first choice.