Robert Owens
One Tear
Tevo Howard Records
I’ll tell you what I know, and most of that I found on the wiki – born in ‘61, sang in church, Owens made it big in the Chicago house scene and then left music to run a Christian bookstore. Since then, there have been some sporadic projects, the latest being this four-track EP of One Tear on Tevo Howard. The Chi town beats are still there, his vocals smoky and hard to decipher, and the breaks to synth lines just not as heavy as they once were. The mix feels a bit overdriven, it’s clipping on my Winamp Spectrum analyzer, and I wish that wasn’t happening. You get the best shot at the lyrics from the original dub version; the loss of love in that song has now scabbed over, but the wound still remains tender. “..I felt betrayed…but now…just one tear to fall down…” he bemoans, but the words in the ellipsis are too hard to hear. I feel his pain, but this tune is for the hardcore mixer, and not up to his earlier work.
Tevo Howard: http://tevohoward.com
