Warping ahead on her own timeline, the follow-up to
Kelly Lee Owens' second full-length,
Inner Song, is titled
LP.8. This seems like a necessary way of distinguishing the album from her earlier releases, showing that she's largely moved beyond the trancey techno and downtempo pop she was making before. Working in Oslo with
Lasse Marhaug, co-founder of noise group Jazkamer and frequent collaborator with
Jenny Hval,
Owens sought to make music evoking both
Throbbing Gristle and
Enya. The opening track is both tough and meditative, with an insistent thump and hissing synths providing a rhythmic framework for vocals that sound like breathing exercises, reinforced by a loop of the song's title, "Release." "Anadlu" is another perspective on the idea of new age industrial, with a startling bass drum sporadically vibrating over sparkling synths, chimes, and spoken vignettes floating in air. The album stays in the ethereal realm for a while, yet there are still elements that prevent the tracks from being as glossy as most new age, like the faint, unsettling rustling underneath "Olga" or the cold starkness of the
Harold Budd-like "Nana Piano." "Quickening" taps into a sort of dark magic, as
Owens speaks of vitality and energy over a rolling bass drone, static crackle, pinging bells, and eventually richer layers of accordion-like synths and breathy vocals. Coming after this, "One" is an unexpectedly hope-filled ambient pop song, with
Owens offering encouraging words such as "you are the one you've waited for" and "everything is possible." "Sonic 8" slams straight into a state of panic, with
Owens declaring an emergency over piercing, thudding industrial scuzz, then taunting the listener with the question "What are you going to do about it?" Yet at the same time, she accompanies her warnings with lovely backing vocals. On
LP.8,
Owens draws from different, seemingly contradictory mystical energies, creating music that challenges and shocks as much as it soothes. ~ Paul Simpson