Kelly Lee Owens: “Dreaming is a Beautiful, Constant Companion”

The polymathic electronic artist returns with her new 'Dreamstate' album, a 10-track LP full of uplifting production and inspiring lyrical messages.

Harry Levin
7 min •
Oct 18, 2024
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It might seem like Kelly Lee Owens has already made every one of her dreams come true.

After all, the multi-disciplinary artist is engaging with dance music at the highest levels without limiting her creativity in any way. There are very few figures in the scene who go from releasing lauded electro-pop albums to supporting Depeche Mode on international arena tours to putting out a collection of vocal-driven IDM to DJing with Charli XCX in Ibiza.

Owens is doing all of that and more, and she has been dreaming of this life since she was growing up in North Wales. During her high school years, she actually won “Daydreamer of the Year,” but her aspirations at that time weren’t based on concrete scenarios or measurable accolades. She would spend her days hiking up forested hills to see the city of Liverpool from a distance, simply envisioning all the different ways her journey could unfold beyond her home.

“The path always looks differently than what you can imagine to a certain degree. Therefore you can create your own disappointments in your head if something doesn't go the way you think it should,” Owens tells Beatportal. “So, the biggest lesson for me has been patience, ultimately. Trusting the process and trusting in the music. I definitely haven't skipped any steps. I'm turning over every stone. When you get offered an arena tour with Depeche Mode, in that moment you do feel ready because of all the steps that you've taken to get to that point as an artist.”

The next step on Owens’ path is her new album, Dreamstate.

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Photo by: Samuel Bradley

Throughout her entire career, she has been assured of her mission: She is here to hold space via sound — to serve the collective by providing a space for them to be a part of something bigger than themselves.

With this LP, Owens intends to hold space for people to dream:

“Dreaming doesn't have to be done alone. Getting into any higher state of consciousness can be done at a group level. We know that when we come together in spaces where we're listening and embodying sound, that's what happens. We leave having felt like we transcended the every day in a positive sense. Positive escapism,” Owens says.

Her various activities as an artist allow her to create a plethora of different spaces for dreaming. Dreamstate is an artistic follow-up to her celebrated 2020 album, Inner Song, with both albums featuring prevalent songwriting and vocal emphasis.

Following the release of this album she will take another solo show on tour wherein she will be manning hardware and singing live. She opened for Depeche Mode with the same type of show, holding space for tens of thousands of people at a time (Daniel Miller, Depeche Mode’s longtime collaborator, praised her as one of the best support acts he’s ever seen). But Owens can also hold space in dark, grimy clubs through the sounds of her leftfield releases like LP.8 and LP.8.2, two collections of foreboding ambient IDM.

All of these different facets of her artistry are steps on the path to making her dreams into reality:

“As an artist, for me, it's just inseparable. I can't escape it, however much I would like to sometimes. All of my songs are of experience,” Owens says. LP.8 and LP.8.2 resulted from her experiencing the dread of the pandemic, but as that era faded further and further into the past, she wanted to create something uplifting and positive.

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Photo by: Jono White
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In fact, she needed that positivity, and Dreamstate was the result. Tremendous warm chords and uplifting messages are the connective tissue throughout the album’s 10 tracks. As she always does, Owens applies a variety of song forms on the record. “Time To” is a light-touch breakbeat that leans on subdued synths to channel the relaxed side of positivity. While “Rise” floats on an uptempo 4/4 kick drum, lifting higher with each phrase as major chord arpeggios fade in alongside uplifting lyrics like, “I see the sun coming up.”

Owens wrote certain songs on the album as her version of electronic ballads. “Trust & Desire,” for example, has no drums. It’s the calm, quiet closing, with shimmering strings and keys encapsulating the listener in sonic repose.

“I just needed [positivity], honestly, on a very basic personal level. I really needed to give that kind of gift to myself first,” Owens says.

She gave herself a space for dreaming, and no song captures this idea better than the title track. In keeping with the rest of the album, “Dreamstate” is built on cheerful chord changes, but other elements of the song are very dynamic. It starts as a sweeping progressive tune then rides a stirring acid line as it morphs into an airtight tech house production. The only constant throughout the song is Owens seductively uttering the words “dream” and “dream state.”

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Photo by: Samuel Bradley

“[Dreaming] is a beautiful, constant companion that is always there if you create enough space and time,” Owens says. “It allows me to feel into something for myself. It's taking the time away from everything that distracts us, and is vying for our attention in order to understand what your needs are, how you feel, and what could be.”

Owens has lived quite a bit of what could be since she was daydreaming in North Wales all those years ago. As she creates more and more spaces with sound, more and more women are praising her for showing them that their dreams are possible.

“When a young woman comes up to me and says, ‘Oh, my God! I wish I could do that,’ ‘I'm just like, ‘Well, you can.’ I didn't know how to do this X amount of years ago. If you want it enough, you will find a way,” Owens says. Like all those young women, she is still finding her way towards her dreams, and she is doing so one step at a time.


Kelly Lee Owen's Dreamstate album is out now via dh2. Listen below and buy it on Beatport.

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