Kelly Lee Owens - Kelly Lee Owens (Purple Vinyl)

Smalltown Supersound

£21.40

Format: LPC2
Catalogue No.: STS293LPC2
Barcode: 7072822293017
Release Date: 25th June 2021
Genre: Experimental/Electronic

TRACKLISTING:
1. S.O.
2. Arthur
3. Anxi ft. Jenny Hval
4. Lucid
5. Evolution
6. Bird
7. Throwing Lines
8. CBM
9. Keep Walking
10. 8

Before starting work on the self-produced album, Owens, a 28-year old Londoner, turned her keen ear towards dance music after working with techno producer Daniel Avery in a London record store. Her voice and contributions can be heard on Avery’s Drone Logic. Since then, she self-released two white label 12”s, with the “Oleic” EP to follow.

Her debut solo album is first and foremost Owens’ vision, a record that exudes a startling level of intimacy even in its largest-sounding moments - such as “Arthur,” a percolating mixture of looped vocals and rustling rhythms that rides on a perpetual near-
crescendo. The song is a tribute to the late iconoclastic musician and kindred spirit Arthur Russell. “He wrote music and stayed true to his vision up until the day he died, ” Owens explains. “He didn’t compromise as an artist, and those are the kind of people I look up to - people who know what they want.” On S/T Owens translates that self-assertiveness into a record that explores a variety of moods - sadness, anxiety, darkly shaded ecstasy - with a trippy-eyed clarity and confidence that only bodes well for the future.

In addition to Avery, who has a co-write credit on Kelly Lee Owens’ ghostly “Keep Walking,” Jenny Hval also appears on the album’s lead single, “Anxi.” It’s a track that shifts from drifting tones and distant vocals to warm squelches and tunnel-vision club beats. “It has been my most freeing and open collaboration so far, and my first time working with a female,” Owens says of working with Hval. "It was a very powerful experience for me, I felt she brought something strange and quite beautiful.”

PRESS/ONLINE:
Pitchfork Rising feature out now
CRACK interview feature out now
Pitchfork named “CBM” Best New Track (track off Oleic EP)
“CBM” supported by FADER, DAZED, Stereogum, Clash, CMU, The 405, DIY and Ransom Note
Interviews with MTV , The 405, London In Stereo , Portals out now
Glowing EP review on Resident Advisor out now, as well as The Line Of Best Fit
Stereogum included EP in “Other notable albums out this week” column
Wonderland named “CBM” track of the wee
New interview confirmed for Impose Magazin
Pitchfork named “CBM” Best New Track
Portals included “CBM” in Monthly Mix for September 2016
DUMMY Magazine included “CBM” in their New Music Spotify playlist
“CBM” played on Nemone’s Electric Ladyland BBC Radio 6 show, Huw Stephens’ BBC Radio 1 show, Tom Ravenscroft’s BBC 6 Music show, Phil Taggart’s BBC Radio 1 show, Adam Walton’s BBC Wales show & more

“The self-titled record is a confluence of enveloping club tracks and underwater transmissions—roiling currents, sonar bass pulses, and a sense of chaos teeming beneath a pristine veneer.”
– Pitchfork “Rising”

"all dramatic lush synth arrangements and strings that would make a good soundtrack to witnessing enclosed flower petals peel open in slow motion.”
-- MTV

OTHER ACTIVITY: https://www.facebook.com/kellyleeowens/