Kelly Lee Owens – Dreamstate review

Kelly Lee Owens hasn’t always been a DJ, artist and producer, which is some of the concept behind Dreamstate. Having grown up in rural North Wales her first job was as a nurse on a cancer ward; as spectacular as her local surroundings were, one of the few ways to escape was by lapsing into fantasy.

After an inevitable decamping to London it was still years before she took up making electronic orientated music, her self titled debut release coming out in 2017. Her fourth breaks considerable new ground, one born after collaborating with The Chemical Brothers Tom Rowland, the overall product a hybrid consisting of ‘bangers and ballads’.

Leaning into the latter as if she was born to do it, Ballad (In The End) and especially the closer Trust and Desire are contemplative distillations of non-dancefloor things, it’s strings and piano as naked as the expressions of regret and uncertainty. For those who came here not to think Higher, Dark Angel and Love You Got will all help you get out of yourself, a deliberate property to which Dreamstate is both a tribute to and a cypher for.

You can read a full review here.