Transcendence is dance music’s emotional core. Escaping the boundaries of 1’s bodily self and reaching past the membership’s sweat-flecked ceiling are the beating coronary heart of this seasoned style. Dance music lives and dies on whether or not it could actually induce an altered state; it’s a heady realm of fantasy and desires that exists solely till the home lights come on.
‘Dreamstate’ might function a gently poetic phrase to explain this blissful, if nebulous, expertise. Welsh digital auteur Kelly Lee Owens’ fourth album is a masterclass in bottling up this potent feeling: the emotionally charged and probably life-changing expertise of shedding one’s self amidst scattered limbs and celestial lights.
Owens understands, with elegant acuity, that emotion is what makes this style actually tick. You’re imagined to really feel bliss, ecstasy, surprise, love and giddy elation. Throughout ‘Dreamstate’’s ten miraculous tracks, these sensations bubble up from inside your consciousness, tapping unknown wells buried deep inside your being.
A transparent thesis assertion comes on ‘Increased’, the place Owens’ layered voice intones “increased and better I am going, lifting you up, I really feel all of it”. It’s an echo of dance music’s historical past, its inside language of being “lifted” and “let out”, but additionally a cosmic dance; a William Blake-esque picture of heavenly resplendence. Comparable imagery recurs on ‘Darkish Angel’, one other chic work that ventures to equal heights of arpeggiated bliss.
Owens’ immaculate manufacturing possesses the feel of sunshine peeking by means of clouds. ‘Rise’’s layers of synths are wholly immersive, swirling round your head like final evening’s half forgotten desires. ‘Love You Obtained’ lands with extra pressure, constructing to an exciting crescendo that spins your head with lovelorn abandon.
The album culminates with its most uncharacteristic and delightful monitor. The serene ‘Belief & Want’ remembers the ambient work of Jon Hopkins as gentle pianos and violins intermingle with delicate digital gildings. Owens’ voice speaks in clipped phrases: “selected me, so fully”, “know higher, do higher”. They’re hopeful aphorisms that, like the remainder of ‘Dreamstate’, purpose for wonderful, stirring heights.
An entire and resounding success, ‘Dreamstate’ presents one of the crucial emotionally engrossing collections of digital music you’ll hear this yr. In a world that may really feel more and more murky, impenetrable and lightless, Kelly Lee Owens’ newest cuts by means of the mire with a lucid and masterful imaginative and prescient; its profound luminescence will set your soul hovering.
Particulars
- Report label: dh2
- Launch date: October 18, 2024
