The early works of Kelly Lee Owens were new age transfigurations on the experimental electronic form. Between her 2017 self-titled debut and 2020’s Inner Song, the Welsh producer discovered sounds refracted out of droning portals into unknown worlds as much as they offered secret entries into raves designed by the avant garde. The pandemic then happened, slowing the Welsh producer’s momentum as it was just peaking, but Owens took upon herself to approach it as a a reactionary creative challenge. Those moments of solitude and isolation would become the decompression and ultimately, the deconstruction, of her sound on 2022’s LP.8.

In grieving many things lost, it allowed a much needed recharge for Owens that only makes her fourth full-length, Dreamstate, all the more a lucid reawakening. In a world where dance music in its purest form has lost its way as an escape without the need of any substances, hearing Owens return as a kinetic soundwave curator whose new focus is fiercely pop-minded while embellishing a sophisticated vision for the dance floor arrives as a timely counterbalance to bratcore’s hedonism with its movement meditations. Lyrics — while fragmented and obtuse oft repeated in mantra — guide the collective 10 tracks with a strong gravitas, conflating emotions with the energies of the universe.

Its shape-shifting techno flickers and bobbles synapses through a radiant prism leading to infinite synesthesia experiences that can raise the pulses of even “Dark Angels” with their hyperactive synths, match the sun’s luminance on “Sunshine”, and feel as free as the lightness of “Air”. When Owens takes you “Higher”, you’re become hypnotically synced with ultra-blissed euphoria. Most astonishing is that Dreamstate requires nothing of turning to sleep in its search for your subconscious’ warmest desires. It unlocks those sensations we can only hope to feel when we close our eyes, and brings them vividly to us in our waking life.

Highlights: “Dark Angel”, “Higher”, “Sunshine”

Kelly Lee Owens’ Dreamstate is availabel now on dh2.

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