Yes, another song by Too Free. This thing is a sexy floor-filler EDM track that has an underlying hint of goth menace to it that immediately catches your ears.
#4: Jon Hopkins – “Singing Bowl (Ascension)”
If 2020 did anything right, it forced all of us to sit and be here. There was often nothing else to do. It was a year of zazen if you let it be so. Along comes Jon Hopkins with this lovely, stunning track suitable for meditation and making out – again two things that we were given a lot of time to do in 2020. Everyone needed to hear this last year, and any other year before or since.
#3: Matt Karmil – “PB”
I don’t know what “PB” means. Peanut butter? Pittsburgh? Pulsating beats? Yeah, that’s probably it, because this dance track is full of them.
#2: Kelly Lee Owens – “Melt!”
Yes, Ms. Owens has two tracks in my top 15 singles of 2020. I think she is the only person alive who can pull off an absolute club banger about global warming. She does nothing but amaze me and make me want to smash my digital turntables with a twelve-pound sledge hammer.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that my favorite single of 2020 comes from my favorite album of 2020. Everything about this song works on a high level – beat, riffs, lyrics, and vocals. It moves and slugs like a professional boxer as it throws out lyrics about getting off your ass and shaking illusions out of your head so you can embrace the present and reality.
Convention-blurring techno producer/musician Kelly Lee Owens will release her second album, Inner Song, on May 1st via Smalltown Supersound. Alongside the announcement, she presents its lead single/visual, “Melt!” Inner Song finds Owens diving deep into her own psyche—working through the struggles she’s faced over the last several years and exploring personal pain while embracing the beauty of the natural world. It’s a leap in artistry from a musician who burst forth on the scene with a confident, rich sound, and is steadily enticing. Inner Song follows the 2017 release of her much laudedself-titled debut, as well as remixes of St. Vincent and by Björk, last year’s “Let It Go / Omen” 12”, and her recent collaboration with Jon Hopkins.
The hair-raising bass and tickling textures of Inner Song drive home that, more so than ever, Owens is locked in to delivering maximal aural pleasure and is adept at containing musical and emotional multitudes within just one song. The album features an unconventional Radioheadcover, the voice of fellow Welsh artist John Cale over a psychedelic lullaby, an electro-pop number that glimmers with yo-yo synths and a tough as nails backbeat, and techno banger “Melt!” Although sonically distinct from the rest of Inner Song, “Melt!” is an essential piece of the album. Throughout, Owens comments on the ever-pressing issue of climate change, right down to its structural composition, which includes samples of melting glacial ice and people skating on thin ice. “I wanted to create something that sounded hard but with organic samples.I felt those were great representations of what’s happening in the world, that every moment you’re breathing and sleeping, this is taking place,” says Owens. Its accompanying video, directed by filmmakerLaneya Billingsley (aka Billie0cean), creates a connection between our bodies and the earth, and shows how the two are not separate. Watch Kelly Lee Owens’ Visuals for “Melt!” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kW0vbVEIXE
Stream “Melt!” https://kellyleeowens.lnk.to/melt Inner Song came out of what Owens describes as “the hardest three years of my life. . .my creative life and everything I’d worked for up to that point was deeply impacted. I wasn’t sure if I could make anything anymore, and it took quite a lot of courage to get to a point where I could create again.” The evocative title of the album, borrowed from free-jazz maestro Alan Silva‘s 1972 opus, “really reflects what it felt like to make this record. I did a lot of inner work in the past few years, and this is a true reflection of that.”
Inner Song is available for pre-order now. The vinyl is being released as a sesquialbum, or triple-sided album, with the fourth side etched by Kim Hiorthøy. Pre-order Inner Song https://kellyleeowens.lnk.to/innersong
Inner Song Tracklist: 1. Arpeggi 2. On 3. Melt! 4. Re-Wild 5. Jeanette 6. L.I.N.E. 7. Corner Of My Sky 8. Night 9. Flow 10. Wake-Up
Kelly Lee Owens Tour Dates: Fri. Feb. 28 – London, UK @ Southbank Centre (DJ) Sat. Feb. 29 – Milan, IT @ Contemporary Art Pavillion (DJ) Fri. March. 6 – London, UK @ 6 Music Festival (DJ) Sat. March. 7 – Graz, AT @ Elevate Festival (DJ) Sat. March. 21 – Istanbul, TU @ Babylon (DJ) Fri. March. 27 – Rome, IT @ Manifesto Festival (DJ) Wed. May. 06 – Brighton, UK @ Patterns – Warm Up Show Fri. May. 08 – Manchester, UK @ YES – Warm Up Show Sat. May. 09 – Berlin, DE @ Pitchfork Music Festival Wed. May. 13 – London, UK @ Rough Trade East Sat. May. 23 – London, UK @ All Points East Festival Sun. June. 14 – Dhërmi, AL @ Kala Festival Sat. June. 27 – Perk, BE @ Paradise City Festival Fri. July. 10 – Bilbao, ES @ BBK Live Festival Thu. July. 30 – Amsterdam, NL @ Dekmantel Festival
