About

Even in the increasingly crowded field of electronic music, Kelly Lee Owens’ debut album arrives as a wonderful surprise. An album that bridges the gaps between cavernous techno, spectral pop, and krautrock’s mechanical pulse, Kelly Lee Owens brims with exploratory wonder, establishing a personal aesthetic that is as beguiling as it is thrillingly familiar.

The debut of Welsh-born musician Kelly Lee Owens feels more personal; not so much a way of saying, “This is what I do,” but, “This is who I am.” The 28-year-old musician grew up singing in choirs and dabbled in bass and drums. In her early 20s, she interned at XL Recordings, played in the indie rock band called the History of Apple Pie, and worked in record stores. It was there she met fellow coworkers Daniel Avery and Ghost Culture, who got her into the studio and gave her a push to put her own music out in the world. But her debut album doesn’t feel like a debut. Its songs don’t so much feel like the product of her experiences as they do some hard-to-measure leap beyond them—a message in a bottle that’s come bobbing back from somewhere in the future.

Her songs are dead simple, often consisting of just a handful of electronic instruments: one or two synth parts, three or four drum sounds, and her voice, layered and patched through endless reverb. But she keeps them engaging by frequently switching up what would seem at first to be completely linear progressions. “Keep Walking” could be three songs in one: the introductory dream-pop passage constitutes another of her impressionistic interior monologues (“City through the window/Make it our own/Run to it/Plastic cherry blossom/Eyes never close/Run to it”). Then there’s a bouncy bridge for 808, chimes, and bass synth—an understated but effective drum groove she could easily draw out for six or eight minutes if the dancefloor were full and the fog guns were firing. Finally, an outro of wordless falsetto and echoing murmurs, like an entirely benevolent siren song. Whatever actual healing powers she may be channeling probably depends upon the patient; nevertheless, Kelly Lee Owens presents an artist with an unusually focused vision of what music is capable of. — (via Pitchfork)

↓
Label: Smalltown Supersound
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: UK
Released: 2017
Genre: Electronic, Pop
Style: Synth-pop, Techno

File under: House / Electro / Techno
⦿