Album Review: Kelly Lee Owens Add Darkness To Dancing Nightlife
My readers know that I love to give images to an album or song because the great thing about music is that it makes you see through sound. Kelly Lee Owens self-titled debut is a blend of dark techno and spectral dance pop mixed in with themes of anxiety and depression. Thus, giving an overall ambiance of a haunted club, where you find yourself lost amongst the shimmering lights and the faded faces that you once called your friends.
There is certainly an undeniable darkness to Kelly Lee Owens music that is slow in pulsing through your mind like a needle drawing blood. Yes, I know these images are rather grim, especially when I am trying to say I like the album. Kelly Lee adds nuance to club tracks that make you wonder whether “the club” is such a free, happy experience after all. Songs like “Throwing Lines” “Lucid” and “Anxi” are all tracks dedicated to the insecurity and the bad paths that we take to fight them. In some ways, the club can be a holder of some our worst decisions, but it is also the keeper of what so many call “their escape”. Kelly Lee’s album is, in essence, a play upon that notion by adding a seediness to her bass that makes you wonder if you are going to meet humans or your demons pass the lounge door. For me, this is a brilliant play, especially when dance music is always seeking to reinvent itself, and Kelly Lee has done it by adding a very subtle thoughtfulness.
I would highly recommend Kelly Lee Owen’s self-titled debut to have a refreshing, re-discovering perception of nightlife. “C.B.M” and “Bird” feel like intimate interplays between the wonder and pain that can strike you as you seek the night to forget your day. It may be hard to envision dance music that draws all these images and human details from exploratory sounds, but that is the genius of Kelly Lee Owens. From the jungle beats of “Evolution” to the mystical synth arrangements of “Arthur”, Kelly Lee sonically dominates the bliss and tragedy of nightlife and youth. For More Information On Kelly Lee Owens and To Buy Her Self-Titled Debut on March 24 Click Here.
