Welsh electronic musician, Kelly Lee Owens, joins Beats in Space with Tim Sweeney on Apple Music 1 to talk about her new album “Dreamstate,” set to release on Friday, October 18. During the episode, Owens explores her collaborative journey in creating the album, reflects on the impact of touring with Depeche Mode, and shares her plans for the coming year.
Kelly Lee Owens tells Apple Music about her new album “Dreamstate”
Kelly Lee Owens: This one, I think mainly was based initially quite broadly on collaboration, collaborating with as many people as possible. Coming after the difficult time where we're all faced to be indoors and separated, I felt like obviously I wanted to do the opposite. Also, having toured with Depeche Mode last year, I ended up writing what I would call some bangers, self professed, and some ballads. So I went for the bangers and ballads combo. The title track, Dreamstate, is about encouraging people to come together in spaces to dream and also find that alone at a time where I feel like we're almost being told what to dream and what our dream should be. I feel like it's more important than ever to take the time and space to just figure out what that means for you and to ground. But that can look like coming together in the club.
Kelly Lee Owens tells Apple Music her time working with Tom Rowlands from The Chemical Brothers
Kelly Lee Owens: Well, I am honored, I feel like, to say that I worked with Tom Rowlands from the Chemical Brothers, which-
Tim Sweeney: How was that? What is he like?
Kelly Lee Owens: He's so nice. He's actually half Welsh, so always a bonus. No, but we wanted to work together for a while and actually the track initially was supposed to be for the Chemical Brothers last record. He sent me two or three things he was working on. Very kindly, as soon as he heard the vocals and the extra bits that I'd written on it, he just said, the song is yours. So we went then back and forth on stuff and I took it and did a little bit of extra production and just enjoyed pulling it all together. Actually, at the very end I wrote strings for it and it's actually Kate Bush's nephew who plays strings in the end. So, I feel very blessed.
Kelly Lee Owens tells Apple Music about her experience working with Bicep
Kelly Lee Owens: The boys from Bicep, who are obviously incredibly talented and just lovely individuals. I had a day at their studio, which once again felt very honored to just be in their, what I would consider, sacred space. Mostly, as lots of Celtic people do, they're Northern Irish, we just talked for about five hours and then went for dinner and then came back in and honestly smashed out the main framework of this track in 30 minutes. Then I took it away again, wrote vocals, and added more production and more writing on top of that. But they were just very generous and supportive during the whole process.
Kelly Lee Owens tells Apple Music about artist collaborations and the process of making “Dreamstate”
Tim Sweeney: Now anyone else that you worked with on this collaboration wise?
Kelly Lee Owens: So there's a track, “Sunshine,” and that was actually written at the end of the sessions for Inner Song. So it was quite interesting. One of the last tracks I write for a project always ends up being the next sort of thread, if not on the next record. It's like it was like a hint of what was to come for me. That was 2019, the bones of that. I finished that off with George Daniel from The 1975 whose subsidiary label, DH2, I've just signed to. He came in at the end of the album process and came in as a fresh pair of ears.
Kelly Lee Owens tells Apple Music about George Daniel and how she signed with DH2
Kelly Lee Owens: George Daniel, 1975, legend, all around nice and talented guy. He signed me to DH2. We'd spoken a lot in the past and we met up for lunch, I think it was in LA last summer, and talked about working together in terms of putting out records. The timing was perfect. I have honestly felt like I've met my matches in terms of energy and output. These guys will be texting me on a Sunday night at 11:00 PM with ideas and energy. It's like, I'm like that. So I feel like I'm surrounded by people who are on that resonance and wavelength and it's just been a joy.
Kelly Lee Owens tells Apple Music about how touring with Depeche Mode influenced her track ‘Dark Angel’
Kelly Lee Owens: I think that the opening track, for example, called Dark Angel, was the first thing I wrote when I came off tour. I think that is quite melodic and anthemic. I think I was influenced by, of course, Depeche Mode, like the lords of great synth riffs and filling giant spaces and creating emotion. There's actually a video of me wearing their merch with the angel wings on it from their last album, Memento Mori, as I came up with the riff. I don't know, these things come about, don't they?
