Following her acclaimed self-titled debut record, Kelly Lee Owens is experimenting with sound on her upcoming sophomore effort Inner Song. The full record is due out in late August and the producer has already previewed the LP with the atmospheric tracks “Night,” “On,” and “Melt.” For her next single, Owens tapped fellow Welsh artist John Cale, formerly of Velvet Underground, to offer his brooding vocals on the track.
Over a slippery beat, Cale’s gruff voice annotates the 7-minute track. Cale delivers each line as prose, even adding in a few Welsh phrases into the mix.
About his experience working on the track, Cale said:
“It’s not usually this immediate that a productive afternoon brings a satisfying conclusion to a task. Kelly sent me a track she’d written — an instrumental that was a gentle drift — something comfortably familiar to what I’d been working on myself. On the first listen, the lyrics came with ease and a chorus and melody grew out of it. Even the Welsh phrases seemed to develop from a place of reflective memory which was a surprise since I hadn’t written in Welsh for decades. Once finished, I realized there existed a built-in thread we’d created together and apart – and her kind spirit pulled it all together and in quick order.”
Owens added:
“I knew with this album I needed to connect with my roots and therefore having the Welsh language featured on the record felt very important to me. Once the music for the track was written and the sounds were formed, I sent the track straight to John and asked if he could perhaps delve into his Welsh heritage and tell the story of the land via spoken-word, poetry and song. What he sent back was nothing short of phenomenal. The arrangement was done during the mixing process and once I’d finished the track, I cried — firstly feeling incredibly lucky to have collaborated with John and his eternal talent and secondly for both of us to have been able to connect to our homeland in this way.”
Listen to “Corner Of My Sky” below.
Inner Song is out 8/28 via Smalltown Sound. Pre-order it here.