Corner Of My Sky

Kelly Lee Owens new album is imminent (Inner Song, out on Friday). This song, a deep, drifting and droning piece of electronic music with a vocal from John Cale came out recently ahead of it. The buzzing bassline and synth strings coupled with Cale’s rich voice, particularly when he sings ‘the rain, the rain, thank God the rain’, make for an intense and emotional ride. Both Kelly and John have spoken of the need to reconnect with their Welsh roots and in the lyrics Cale tells the story of the land, through song, poetry and the spoken word.

Kelly’s debut album came out in 2017, one of my favourites of that year. Last year she collaborated with Jon Hopkins on Luminous Spaces, a seven minute piece of brilliance. Covid delayed the release of Inner Song but its timing now at the end of summer seems perfect.

Isolation Mix Seven

An hour and a minute of stitched together songs for Saturday. This one caused me a bit of a headache at times. It was an attempt I think at first to try to join some dots together in terms of feel or sounds, with a nod to Kraftwerk following Florian Schneider’s death last week. There was an earlier version that went quite techno/dance for the last twenty minutes but I then went back and did the end section again. I’m still not sure I got it quite right, and think I may have tried to cover too many bases stylistically, but my self imposed deadline was approaching so ‘publish and be damned’, as the Duke of Wellington said. Although he wasn’t dealing with the business of trying to get spaghetti westerns, indie dance, shoegaze and leftfield electronic music to sit together in one mix was he?

Ennio Morricone: Watch Chimes (From ‘For A Few Dollars More’)

David Sylvian and Robert Fripp: Endgame

Talk Talk: Life’s What You Make It

Saint Etienne: Kiss And Make Up (Midsummer Madness Mix)

Spacemen 3: Big City (Everyone I Know Can Be Found Here)

Beyond The Wizards Sleeve: Diagram Girl (Beyond The Wizards Sleeve Re- Animation)

My Bloody Valentine: Don’t Ask Why

Jon Hopkins and Kelly Lee Owens: Luminous Spaces

Kraftwerk: Numbers

Death In Vegas: Consequences Of Love (Chris and Cosey Remix)

Chris Carter: Moonlight

Simple Minds: Theme For Great Cities

Durutti Column: It’s Wonderful

I have a significant birthday fast approaching. A few months ago we had planned that today would be a day of celebrating with anyone who wanted to join us, starting with lunch and few beers in town and then a tram pub crawl southbound out of the city centre towards Sale, stopping off in Old Trafford (maybe) and Stretford (definitely) before some drinks locally in the evening. That obviously isn’t happening. I’ll have to re-schedule for my 51st.

Night

Kelly Lee Owens was about to release her second album Inner Song, the follow up to her 2017 debut, but has pushed it back in light of the current situation. She put this up last week though saying…

‘From me to you, here is a song from my album. It’s called ‘Night’. This wasn’t really supposed to be a single but with everything that is happening right now I wanted to reach out x’

Night is a wonderfully emotive piece of electronic pop, a song with a softer edge than the techno of previous single Melt! and with a pulse that anchors it. It builds too, becoming quite explosive. Very nice indeed.

Monday’s Long Song

Kelly Lee Owens remixed by Prins Thomas in 2018, a seventeen minute Diskomiks that stretches her song Bird out into new places and new shapes. Six minutes in the kick drum takes over as everything else falls away. There’s a wobbly bass note and then some ace bongo/congas work and then it all starts to build again. The last minute or so has some moody, reflective strings to round the journey off. Long and worth investing in. If you’re short of time or attention span there’s an eight minute edit version, which is still pretty long.

Kelly has a new album out in May, Inner Life, and trailed it last week with the whip-crack smart techno of Melt! Her debut album in 2017 was one of my favourites of that year. I played it recently to see if it still was (and it is). Modern, moving, intense electronic music. Promises to be a good ‘un.

Luminous Spaces

A thing of beauty from Jon Hopkins and Kelly Lee Owens, which began life as a remix of one of the songs from his Singularity album, gained a vocal from Kelly and then took on a life of its own, developing into this seven minute, weightless journey through time and space.

More Than A Woman

Kelly Lee Owens has released one of this year’s best albums- her self-titled debut is the Piccadilly Records album of the year and they don’t usually get it wrong. The album has been near my stereo since it came out, a woozy, spectral head-trip with little melodies emerging from the analogue synths and drum machine, sing-song vocals and extended waves of ambient noise. To finish the year off she has put out a single, a cover of Aaliyah’s More Than A Woman, heavy bass and sampled strings, out digitally now and on vinyl soon. The B-side is her own remix  of the A-side, a tougher house version with squiggles.

 

You Look Certain (I’m Not So Sure)

Back at the start of the year Kelly Lee Owens released an album of woozy, slightly off kilter dance music songs. It was stuck to my turntable for a while and will be dug out again before the end of the year. Kelly has reworked a new song by Mount Kimbie, a dance music duo who started in dubstep and moved elsewhere- ambient electronica, future garage. The result is right up my street, a repetitive echoey sound to open and a single kick drum, and then several minutes of build, layers of sound on top of each. When the bass hits at two minutes everything gets spaced out a bit. The echoey, keening sound comes back with some pow-pows. By the time the vocal comes in at four minutes you’re well away, transported elsewhere. Blissful stuff.

Oleic

My posts seem to be getting briefer- maybe I’m running out of ways to talk about music and I don’t seem to have any stories to tell either.

Kelly Lee Owens has released some really interesting music in recent years and is gearing up for an album. I first heard her as the voice on some of Daniel Avery’s Drone Logic lp and the techno influences are evident in the songs here. There’s also some wonky electronic pop going on and a whole load of disorientating echo and wobble.

This one came out two years ago, a tribute to Arthur Russell.

This ep, Oleic, is on Bandcamp, four slices of snare, synth, odd frequencies and voice.