Review Summary: Move your body - towards the light around the corner.
Consider how peculiar it is that we live in a world where the best among us can render our emotions in an aural format. An *electronic* aural format. It is something that is easy to take for granted: that we can interact with gorgeous facsimiles of human experience rendered by transistors as increasingly elaborate electrical pulses. Now, we are treated to another serving by Kelly Lee Owens, in an album that manages to be both sharply measured and deliciously indulgent.
Truthfully, I have always struggled with covering electronic records. Outside of particularly eclectic or emotive electronic artists (Iglooghost, The Avalanches), there has always been something about electronic records that has been difficult to put into words. At times, it is due to their ability to fade into a proverbial background - at others its lacking emphasis on vocals can make their more human qualities more difficult to reach.
Kelly Lee Owens does not suffer from this problem on 'Dreamstate' - at least not initially. Here, the now veteran composer of electrical currents has set out to capture a very specific mood, and to render the energetics that mood inspires. And that mood is anticipation. The cool breath of an autumnal oceanside evening, before an icy wave crashes over you. The quickening pulse in your veins that preamble the touch of a new lover. 'Dreamstate' is both an exploration of those sensations as much as it is an attempt at replicating them in an aural format.
This is an album that is excellent at keeping you craving for more - to its merit and detriment. It is built on a foundation of airtight rhythms and ironclad sequencing. Its beats sound supremely confident - from the gooey and erratic title track to the insistent and crisp 'Love You Got' - Kelly Lee ensures the listener feels locked in before peeling them away and raising their synapses. Proper anticipation is, naturally, in response to a desire - and a deviation of a standard. A norm. Here: a rhythm. Kelly Lee keenly understands the relationship between foundational rhythm and lofty atmospherics - playing them off of each other in a tantalizing fashion.
As the album progresses, 'Higher' continues the trend of bouncing beats and shimmering synthesized high hats; painting a crisp and measured mirage of idealized 90s house rave bliss. Yet always in a minimalist framework - Kelly Lee's signature mode. As demonstrated in 'Rise,' she does more with less, permitting her to render simple, sequenced keyboard arpeggios as bold statements of intention.
Granted, this is no GAS or Floating Points - atmospheric: yes. But an ambient album this is not. 'Dreamstate' is undeniably Kelly Lee Owens' danciest record yet. In it, she is not only playful, but committed to inspire hip shaking and grins just as much as emotional catharsis - which separates this from her earlier work. And as much fun as it is - this is where we run into the 'detriment' counter to this album's many merits.
Specifically, this album seems to burn itself out on higher energy grooves around its halfway point. Such that most of the tracks on the back half of this LP - save the gorgeously textured 'Sunshine' - fall back on flat atmospherics and uncharacteristic melodrama. You could argue that it may have worked better - or at least as a tighter package - as an EP. This isn't to say that the album falls apart - it merely loses the momentum of the point-counterpoint relation of rhythm and flourish that made its front half so tantalizing.
The album can still be read as a success - how can it not when Kelly Lee Owens is so clearly growing her incredible skill and palate in real time? 'Dreamstate' is like all of our best dreams - our 'brightmares.' Ones where you DO get one final conversation with your late grandmother. Ones where you DO get the love and closure you wanted from the one who got away. Ones where you rise in your bed, feeling all the more human, and yet somehow a little less for it. Anticipation is a pulse that keeps us going, the brightness we can see just around the corner - or rather, hear. Even if it can sour in the end.
Still, we all deserve having something to look forward to.
