Description
2024 has been a landmark year for award winning Scottish musician Dean Owens with standing ovations and sold out tours including Cambridge Folk Festival, Netherlands, UK and USA - 2025 is shaping up to be even better with the highly anticipated release of his twelfth album Spirit Ridge,recordedat Crinale Studio, a 400 year old farmhouse in the hills in Emilia Romagna, Italy - the land of Dean's lion tamer great great grandfather - with renowned Italian producer Don Antonio. Spirit Ridgewill be launched at Glasgow's Celtic Connections on 2 Feb, with upcoming tour dates including the prestigious Port Fairy Festival in Australia, plus UK, US and The Netherlands.
Spirit Ridge is the follow up to Dean's critically acclaimed collaborations with US Latin rock icons Calexico which resulted in 2 remarkable albums - Sinner's Shrine (2022) and El Tiradito (The Curse of Sinner's Shrine) (2023) - which dramatically evoked the wide panoramic landscapes of the south western US desert states. The twelve songs onSpirit Ridgeare a musical and lyrical development, both monumental and deeply personal, rooted in a liminal hinterland which connects the lush Italian hills, the US desert states and post industrial Scotland. The spirit of the lion tamer is rarely far away!
Preceded by 3 well received "taster" EPs (The Ridge Trilogy) released July-Dec 2024, the full Spirit Ridge album is now ready to launch into the world in all its guitar driven, brass infused glory! A magical mix of Dean's trademark melancholy and unforgettable melodies, a masterpiece of concise songwriting about family and connections to places, with a nod to spirit animals. Vocally he has never sounded better.
