Kelly Lee Owens Announces New Album LP.8, Shares 2 Singles

British ambient artist Kelly Lee Owens has announced that her third studio album, titled LP.8, is on its way (April 29, Smalltown Supersound). The announcement for the follow-up to 2020’s acclaimed Inner Song arrives with two wildly different tracks: the album’s anxious, buzzing closer “Sonic 8,” and its layered, soothing antidote, “Olga.”

Made in Oslo with avant-noise producer Lasse Marhaug (Merzbow, Sunn O))), Jenny Hval), LP.8 came out of what a press release describes as “an unbridled exploration into the creative subconscious,” with Owens aiming to combine “tough, industrial sounds with ethereal Celtic mysticism, creating music that ebbs and flows between tension and release,” and citing Throbbing Gristle and Enya as major influences. “For me, 8 meant completion,” Owens says in a statement, “an album that will ripple infinitely with me personally.”

That contrast between tension and release certainly comes through comparing the first two tracks Owens has shared with us. “Sonic 8” finds Owens chanting what sounds like a warning message in a deadpan voice over exploding industrial beats and whispering backup vocals that seem to give away all fear absent from Owens’ main vocal. The panicked, repeated whispers of “anxiety,” “help us” and “what do we do now?” rub up against the laconic lead voice that notes, “You know, I’ve been feeling for a long time now that something’s wrong, deeply wrong,” as if it just occurred to her. In a way, the contrast is almost funny, but it’s also reflective of being forced to keep going as if things are okay when they’re clearly not (feels eerily familiar to what a bunch of us are going through now! Huh!). In wild contrast to both of those voices in our heads, “Olga” almost feels like a sigh of relief, featuring angelic wordless harmonies from Owens that wash over the senses.