Bringing their Americana-folk sounds all the from Nashville to Australian shores, BOWEN * YOUNG’s recently released debut album explores themes of celebrating life’s victories, passions, twists and turns.
A two year journey leaning on their shared experiences and emotions, their aptly named debut album Us has been described as ‘Cinematic Americana’ due to its tangible emotions.
“We often joke that if you don’t like love songs, you’re gonna hate our album,” artists Clare Bowen and Brandon Robert Young joke of their new body of work.
“We do everything together, we’re married, in love, best friends, and we work together, we truly feel we are better artists together than we are apart.
“As we were writing Us with our dear friends, and co-writers Justin Halpin and Cale Dodds, we wanted to step back into the moment we first met, and articulate that emotion.
“It became clear very quickly that Us must be the title track of the album.”
A celebration of love, resilience and the power of music, the duo attribute raw and real emotion as the cornerstone of the album.
“Our North Star as we wrote for this album was honesty, we wanted to write what we knew to be true, what we knew we were currently feeling, or had felt in the past,” they said.
“We never wanted to put on a costume and play pretend, the songs all had to be genuine, and born out of something we had touched or tasted. Every song on the record is a story we have lived.”
While falling within genres of country, americana and folk, subtle notes from across the genre-board live throughout the album’s tracks.
“We love the intimacy of a single acoustic guitar and two voices singing quietly together,” they say of their work.
“While at the same time, we felt the power of a full band allowed for a broader spectrum of colour and emotion; we didn’t want the album to be one or the other, but rather both, because we love both.
“We hoped to create a body of work that was raw, beautiful, imperfect, honest, and honestly sometimes a bit unhinged.”
The artists attribute their creative approach to Us artists as akin to a film’s soundtrack and its respective characters. Much as the desert is its very own character in a western, each track has a pivotal sonic role to play.
Different scenes, not unlike life experiences, beg to be represented through differing tempos, instruments, sounds, and lyrics. The journey of telling our stories in various ways is very much intriguing to us.
With over 50 songs written for the album prior to recording, deciding which songs would make the album was an adventure in itself for the duo.
“Gets Late Early was written almost as a diary entry of a songwriter in Nashville just trying to hang on, and make something meaningful.
“It speaks directly to the highs and lows, the pain and elation, and the feelings of fulfilment and rejection.
“It was honestly not a song we ever thought anyone would ever hear, it was a song that was written because that’s what we were feeling at the time, and never really considered it as a consideration for the album.
“But one day we played an iPhone worktape of the song for Sean McConnell, and he felt very strongly that it should be on the record. We’re so glad it is.”
An emotive narrative, Us is a culmination of real and true experiences, assembled into a 10 track album, available stream everywhere now.
