Album Notes

With his debut album TOO CLOSE TO HEAVEN (2008) german based musician Dad Horse Ottn set the base for an individual genre. THE DAD HORSE EXPERIENCE's style was tagged as Outlaw- or Underground Gospel; Ottn himself calls it Keller-Gospel, an unconventional mixture of Southern Gospel with european elements from Punk, Trash and Polka, played with banjo, basspedal and kazoo.

Now with his second album DEAD DOG ON A HIGHWAY Ottn goes forth in the developement of his unique style. The album was produced by Rolf Kirschbaum, who is well known for his collaborations with Taj Mahal, Holmes Brothers, Sandy Dillon amongst many others, and was recorded at Hörwerk Tonstudio in Bookholzberg (Germany) by Andree Klose. Self-taught musician Ottn recruited the support of skilled players from the german music scene including Hanno Jannsen (drums), Rolf Kirschbaum (slide, percussion) and Don Voigt (mandolin, violin) along with a good bunch of backing vocalists who transform the much-lauded intensity of the one man band's stage performance into the musical language of a studio album.

The result is a 13 track album with each song exploring different directions of the DAD HORSE EXPERIENCE'S musical vision, all of them building an organic whole, bound together by Dad Horse Ottn's extraordinary voice and his special talent in song writing.

The songs on DEAD DOG ON A HIGHWAY tell about the experiences of a travelling gospel musician. Since 2008 Ottn has been touring from german East Frisia up to the portuguese Algavre and in recent times he even played the US Bible Belt – cradle and home of traditional Gospel music and source of inspiration for this musician. He tells stories about dead dogs beside the road, waiting at the turnpike for the next cigarette or for a merciful death, about encounters with Jesus, a World Trade Center in the sky, and he wonders how to find out God's will if mother is preparing human flesh in the kitchen. His style of story telling is as distinctive as his way of musical expression. Beneath every song sadness is floating hand in hand with a quiet and slightly twisted sense of humour. With this album Dad Horse Ottn proves his originality and authenticity. Here you have an artist who has found his own style.