Kelly Lee Owens — Inner Song
I’ve been meaning to shift the focus of this mag to more than just music. To cover the art of storytelling across all sorts of media, but primarily music. I’ve wanted to talk about the history of human civilisation and the amazing audio/visual storytelling experience of Fall of Civilizations TV. I’ve wanted to talk about the best documentaries I’ve seen this year, like the creepy and ultimately moving portrait of two stalkers of 80s pop singer Tiffany Darwish called I Think We’re Alone Now. At the end of the day, I want to talk about all the stories that move me, not only the musical journeys. But when push comes to shove, I invariably end up sitting at my laptop and gushing about an album with which I’ve been falling in love. And instead of talking about either of those very worthy stories, today I will talk about (the equally worthy, to be fair) Inner Song by Kelly Lee Owens.
When the On EP came out earlier this year, I was very excited. I spoke about the two key purposes of the human voice in electronic music:
to narrate a story through the song’s lyrics
to be an instrument, through melody and harmony (and as percussion in, say hip-hop).
I spoke about the EP’s inventive take on the second purpose, and professed excitement for the upcoming album on which the tracks in the EP would feature. The album, Inner Song, is one of the best works of minimal electronic music I’ve heard this year.
For me, there’s two things Inner Song gets on point, leading it to ace the distractingly good test(TM) for good music in the Age Of Distraction. One is the textures of its instruments and how they evolve, the second is the answers it gives for the age-old question of popular music: how to write a good hook? These are remarkably difficult things to do, especially for an album of minimal electronica. I would know; I’m struggling to answer just these questions with the (fairly minimal electronic) music I’m currently working on (more on that very soon). The album is replete with repeating but evolving melodies, perfectly timed blips and blops, and a remarkably novel use of Owens’s feather-lite voice overlaid on simple but effective percussion loops. The whole experience is comforting and melodic while also being musically challenging and boundary-defining. Your nervous system deserves to experience it.
