Starved of connection throughout the pandemic, Kelly Lee Owens sought to reiterate her desire to dance and to commune with her most recent album, Dreamstate.
The Welsh producer isn’t your run-of-the-mill dance act, however. Her beating heart and humanism often driving her brand of electronic music that flirts with both ambient and techno, two genres of music that can often feel distant and disconnected.
With Dreamstate – and tonight at the Troxy in East London – Kelly took on trance with her trademark warmth and allure, expressing, as her certified banger ‘Love You Got’ declares, she’s “wanting pure euphoria”.
Vibrations from the droning bass rumbled through the floor even before Kelly stepped foot on stage, laying the groundwork for a dose of midweek indulgence. A tad discombobulating on a Thursday evening, when the hedonistic haze of an early morning festival slot might be more fitting for the producer.
But her set was no straightforward rave.
“Are you guys ready to dance?” she urged down the mic. The artist’s giddy energy was palpable – she’s called London her home for half her life – and was immediately mirrored by the crowd, who seldom stopped arms flailing and heads swaying throughout her entire set (shout out for support act yuné pinku too, whose ethereal dance-pop teed up Kelly sublimely).
Surrounded by an amphitheatre of strobe lights and flanked by her two decks, Kelly suggested it would be a performance rife with dynamic and drama, launching into the titular ‘Dreamstate’ from the off.
Slogans of “EUPHORIA” and “DREAMSTATE” flashed on the screen behind her as the producer took little time in amping up the BPM, the words repeating like a mantra. Much of the set followed suit, with steam consistently billowing out from the undulating audience getting loose at the front.
An understudy to Jon Hopkins, you can see why Kelly would want to emulate her mentor, an artist who has successfully balanced his crunchy techno tendencies with his classical ambitions.
For ‘Ballad (In The End)’, Kelly brought out a violinist, in a poignant but perhaps misguided moment that seemed lost on the crowd who were in attendance for dancefloor emancipation and not much else.
The show’s promoters did the producer a disservice, too. Troxy, the cavernous former Art Deco cinema, isn’t exactly renowned for its atmosphere. Can’t help but think her performance would’ve been better suited to a venue with a more kinetic, inclusive feel.
Receiving the chestiest whoops and hollers for ‘Higher’, the aforementioned ‘Love You Got’ and ‘On’, Owens showcased her smarts as a producer capable of greater sensuality on the cover of Aaliyah’s ‘More Than A Woman’ – a curveball choice that in fact suited her ASMR-like vocals exquisitely.
Prowling throughout the front row on occasion when her beats reached a fever pitch, Kelly saved her opus for the tail end of the show, the continual, cathartic crescendo of ‘Jeanette’. The paean to her late grandmother swirled as geometric patterns transmogrified behind the producer, concluding with a split-second pixelated image of Jeanette herself.
With no encore planned, Owens returned to the stage to offer heartfelt thanks to the audience and her team. She seemed eternally grateful for the adulation she’s received for being able to live out her dream. Four albums into her career, the nurse-turned-dancefloor darling’s pursuit of pure euphoria has well and truly paid off.
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