Listen to “Melt!” by Kelly Lee Owens

Kelly Lee Owens’ solo work exists in a subaqueous space with layered sound waves that seem to reverberate through liquid. Her self-titled LP exhibited her uncanny ability to depict sound’s physical movement; she sampled a rushing stream in “Arthur” and later featured whale synths on the “Let it Go” b-side “Omen.” On “Melt!,” the first single from her forthcoming LP Inner Song, the track’s physically immersive production samples both the sounds of a melting glacier and people skating on ice, and it completes this submersion with a synth melody that trickles from the top of your head to the tips of your toes.

Owens says she wanted to use organic samples to create something that sounded “hard,” a climate crisis anthem for the club. Plucked from the context of Inner Song, the pounding four-on-the-floor rhythm section on “Melt!” makes for both a club banger and a political comment, a dazzling dance macabre for impending environmental collapse.

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