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Owls, Omens and Oracles

Owls, Omens and Oracles is the sixth studio album by American singer Valerie June. It was released on April 11, 2025, by Concord Records.

Background

The album was produced by M. Ward and consists of fourteen songs, including the lead single, "Joy, Joy!", which was released on February 4, 2025, alongside a music video directed by Taylor Washington. The album incorporates elements of folk, blues, gospel, and soul, and features collaborators such as the Blind Boys of Alabama and Norah Jones.

Reception

In Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean out of 100, the album got a 87, which indicates "universal acclaim", from 7 critic reviews.

Timothy Monger of AllMusic described Owls, Omens and Oracles as "a textured, grungy-sounding album, full of melody, soul, and inspired songwriting." The Guardian rated the album four out of five stars and stated "The Tennessee singer-songwriter's joyful new album pushes back against the bleakness of doomscrolling." Paste Magazine assigned it a rating of 8.0 out of ten, calling the album "a necessary reminder missing from swaths of contemporary music that happiness is just as potent a tool for beating back the darkness as anger."

Track listing

Personnel

Credits adapted from Tidal.

Musicians

  • Valerie June – vocals (all tracks), acoustic guitar (tracks 1–7, 10, 12, 14), clapping (6), banjo (12)
  • M. Ward – electric guitar (tracks 1–10, 12, 13), acoustic guitar (2, 3, 6, 9, 10, 12, 13); glockenspiel, piano (2); background vocals (6, 13), clapping (6), marimba (14)
  • Kaveh Rastegar – bass guitar (tracks 1–10, 12, 14)
  • Stephen Hodges – drums (tracks 1–10, 12, 14), percussion (1–4, 7, 12)
  • Nate Walcott – string arrangement (tracks 1–3, 7, 8, 12), horn arrangement (1, 5–8, 14), keyboards (1), Hammond organ (2–4, 7, 8, 12), piano (2, 5–7, 10, 14), trumpet (5–8, 14), clapping (6)
  • Vanessa Freebairn-Smith – cello (tracks 1–3, 7, 12)
  • Luanne Homzy – viola, violin (tracks 1–3, 7, 12)
  • Paul Cartwright – viola, violin (tracks 1–3, 7, 12)
  • Zach Delanger – viola, violin (tracks 1–3, 7, 12)
  • Sylvain Carton – baritone saxophone (tracks 1, 5–7, 14)
  • Josh Johnson – tenor saxophone (tracks 1, 5–7, 14)
  • Vikram Devasthali – trombone (tracks 1, 5–7, 14)
  • The Blind Boys of Alabama – background vocals (track 7)
  • DJ Cavem Moetavation – programming (track 8)
  • Norah Jones – background vocals (track 9)

Technical

Charts

References