The collateral effects of the pandemic are understood from the first to the last note of LP. 8, third album by English electronic composer Kelly Lee Owens. Without touring, the clubs closed, she decamped to Oslo to devote herself to writing this album which begins with her voice constantly repeating Release, with this hollow drum that sounds as if she was banging her fist on a door to get out of her confinement. The sequel first expresses resignation: Kelly lets go and escapes into atmospheres weighed down by mechanical percussion, sometimes imbued with hope, as in the reassuring harmonies ofAnadlu (“breathe”, in Welsh), blending into the cloudy and angelic N/A (2) and Olga, the latter punctuated by undulating bass notes. His voice remains an essential ingredient of his vision of techno, here purged of his dream pop inclinations in favor of ambient references, surprising on Babe Pianoon which we hear only the reverberation of an upright piano motif, accompanied by birdsong.
To see in video