KELLY LEE OWENS

Her recent album made the UK Top 30 and she’s collaborated with the likes of Björk and St. Vincent, but the Wales-born producer insists on keeping her music joyfully chaotic

Kelly Lee Owens’ journey into electronic music started in the strangest of places: the male voice choirs of North Wales.

“I grew up in a working class village in Wales and choirs were part of everyday life,” explains Owens. “It’s almost like National Service; everybody has to join a choir. People talk about this idea of finding your voice and I think that’s what happened when I was listening to those choirs. Hard men, ex-miners in their 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s, singing with so much passion. Music had never hit me like that before. It made me want to explore my own voice. How could I express my emotions with this sound?

“The next step was Kate Bush,” she says, laughing. “I was at my Nana’s house, going through the books in my uncle’s teenage bedroom. I took one out of the bookshelf and there, stuck to his bedroom wall, was an old picture of Kate. I just thought, ‘Who is this mythical creature?’. Suddenly, I’d discovered another artist who uses her voice as an instrument. Yes, she sings lyrics, but the way she delivers them turns her voice into something supernatural.

“At the same time, I was playing in a few indie bands and listening to the Top 40, but there didn’t seem to be anything that captured the spirit of those choirs.”

That all changed after Owens made the move to London and managed to land a job at the now defunct Pure Groove record shop in Smithfield Market.