Produced by the wonderful M Ward, this new album Owls, Omens & Oracles by Valerie June continues her expansive, original musical journey. Blending a distinctive voice with a wide-eyed joyful, hippy take on life there just isn’t another artist out there doing this kind of slightly mystical, off-beat musical style.
Opening with the transcendent ‘Joy! Joy!’ she sets the tone for the whole record, with an uplifting call to find the ‘joy joy in your soul’. There’s a little force to the music too, with her rocking out as she celebrates the power of finding that spirit.
Then we’re straight into ‘All I Really Wanna Do’ a stunning little love song, where her voice is given the chance to really shine, supported by a lush soundscape of strings and piano.
The quality continues on ‘Endless Tree’ which really seems to epitomise what makes this artist special. She admits to seeing the pain in the world and is doing her best to help everyone seek and find comfort in nature. Some may find the sentiment too sentimental, but really her vision is a beautiful balm to hear.
She takes a turn inward on ‘Inside Me’, deciding to find peace with what she has rather than seeking more. ‘Trust the Path’ continues this idea, a gorgeous piano meditation, where she isn’t sure exactly where she’s headed but allows this uncertainly to become her guiding light.
The M Ward influence feels quite pronounced on ‘Love me Any Old Way’ and the results are a sweet, jazzy, love song, which just sounds fantastic.
‘Superpower’ sounds surprisingly like triphop, with its spoken word musings over a slow beat. It’s an interesting left turn which illustrates the range of her musical influences and willingness to push herself beyond comfortable boundaries.
We’re back on more natural territory with ‘Sweet Things Just for You’ another honey drenched ditty with Norah Jones on backing vocals, and much like ‘She & Him’ it embraces a kind of twee positivity which is always welcome.
On ‘I Am in Love’ and ‘Calling my Spirit’ she echoes some of the feelings of earlier songs, stripping them back so they become almost like mantras she’s using to build her spiritual vision.
We then have an interesting divergence on ‘My Life is a Country Song’, where she brings back the banjo that was so central to her earlier albums. She sings a sweet song of falling in love and ruefully decides her life is like a classic country song. She has no musical agenda here and the song itself barely sounds country. In fact that seems to be the point – she appears to have no wish to fix or ‘save’ the genre, instead seems to celebrate the connection her life has to the stories and songs that came before. What she’s interested in as an artist is just being her authentic self, singing her songs, letting them guide her path, being as free as her soul and spirit allows her to be.
Owls, Omens and Oracles is an uplifting, heartwarming album which feels like a confident shift in a new direction musically. Valerie June is a prophetic dreamer, whose vision of life is overflowing with wisdom and optimism. Get this joy, joy straight into your veins.
BUY: https://valeriejune.bandcamp.com/album/owls-omens-and-oracles
Highway Queens 
Leave a comment