LP.8

Beautifully black. [Jul 2022, p.88]

It's a much less linear journey than we would expect from Owens, but it's also a welcome shift, an intriguing pivot from the very human themes of Inner Song. This time around, she invites the listener to wade through the fascinating depths of her imagination. It's hard not to close your eyes and surrender to the figure-eight flow.

An album both beautiful and challenging.

Forced to do something different out of circumstances, Owens searched deep within her musical soul and tapped into her deepest creative touchstones to record a remarkable record, one that’s a product of a distinct time and place in history.

The record is about opposition: it haunts but soothes, it repels while drawing you in. As you listen, this unbridled exploration of sound will become part of your own dialectic subconscious rather than a soundtrack on your dancefloor. You have to listen.

Not surprisingly, given Marhaug’s presence during the time of global crisis when it was produced, this album has a harder edge than Owens’s previous releases. [Jun 2022, p.60]

While it's hard not to succumb to the subtle disappointment inherent in hearing an artist you love make such a sudden shift in sound, beyond that initial disappointment is an album that is the artist’s maturest to date. An album that is, somehow, equal-parts icy and warm; which progresses, despite this contrast, with an ease that is masterful; and which, inevitably, leaves me curious and yearning for LPs 3-7.

LP.8 is certainly roomier than Owens’ previous work. More directed at dedicated dance-heads, more suited to the durgy decrepitude of basement dancefloors, and more abstract in its approach. But LP.8 provides further evidence that Kelly Lee Owens operates in a field entirely of her own.

On LP.8, Owens draws from different, seemingly contradictory mystical energies, creating music that challenges and shocks as much as it soothes.

Highlights ‘Voice’ and ‘Sonic 8’ will be a surefire test for any club or festival sound system to really prove its worth, and the cold, menacing techno of ‘Release’ sounds a bit like the insides of a power station working really hard to keep a city warm. That said, if you don’t have the huge rig needed to do these tunes justice, and with the days outside just getting warmer, it might be a tough sell to sit at home and curl up with ‘LP. 8’.

With lyrics that are minimal and often delivered measured and mantra-like, LP.8 is hypnotic, introspectively abstract, and while some may find it too left-field, or lacking her more club-leaning tracks, it's not intended to follow in those footsteps. LP.8 creatively explores Owens' inner life while being inextricably tied to the current age.

The fearsome symmetry and formidable concision Owens attempts here is a high-risk, high-reward strategy, and while the first half of the album comes on strong, the second half is a little more prone to interrupting itself.

Even though LP.8 is a triumph in tone, it’s disappointing to listen to a record that feels as though Owens was self-conscious knowing the accessibility of the releases that came before it. ... But on the other hand, it would be foolish not to chase the muse, and this album is definitely born from the bleak times in which it was created.