August 05, 2020

Kelly Lee Owens: Corner Of My Sky (ft. John Cale)

Welsh singer Kelly Lee Owens reached out to John Cale to come up with the vocals for her pulsating electronics composition Corner Of My Sky, a single from her forthcoming album Inner Song, out via Smalltown Supersound on August 28. Cale came up with a haunting spoken word piece, delivered in English and Welsh. It could be considered as a sort of follow for this guest spot on The Insult on the Trash Palace album Positions.

John Cale about how the track came together:

It's not usually this immediate that a productive afternoon brings a satisfying conclusion to a task. I met Kelly a while back when working on a song for my album in London, and was intrigued by the possibility of a future collaboration - maybe even something in Welsh. Several months later Kelly popped up and timing worked out. She 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.

Kelly Lee Owens on the collaboration:

I knew with this album I needed to connect with my roots & 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 could immediately hear John’s voice on it. Working with him had always been a dream of mine and so I sent the track straight to him & asked if he could perhaps delve into his Welsh heritage & tell the story of the land via spoken-word, poetry & song.

What he sent back was nothing short of phenomenal and I knew exactly how to arrange it. The arrangement was done during the mixing process & once I’d finished the track, I cried - firstly feeling incredibly lucky to have collaborated with John & his eternal talent & secondly for both of us to have been able to connect to our homeland in this way.

» John Cale on Facebook
» kellyleeowens.com

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