Jon Hopkins and Kelly Lee Owens have teamed up for ‘Luminous Spaces’, their excellent new collaborative single.
‘Luminous Spaces’ is a masterful track that somehow manages to sound intimate and vast all at once, it could soundtrack an epic Sci-fi film. Enveloping from Owens dreamy couplets that gaze out into the star speckled atmosphere wondering what life is for.
Underpinned by an expansive trance beat and intricate layers of synths that gradually release into a zoom across the sky before exploding into a crescendo like a shooting star. Harking back to the early 90s and the electronica and trance worlds it distills an emotional rush with undulating sections that sound haunting, affecting and euphoric and quite incredible.
The duo have slowly built a working relationship over the past few years, sharing the same bill in both a live capacity and on DJ line-ups across the globe. ‘Luminous Spaces’ marks their first official recording together.
The track, originally destined to be a remix of Hopkins’ ‘Luminous Beings’ by Owens, morphed into a track in its own right following the pair working closely in the studio together on the track.
Hopkins on working with Owens:
“This project started as something very different from what you’re hearing now – I wanted Kelly to do a straight remix of Luminous Beings. I sent her the parts, but what she sent back just felt like something totally new, and had the potential to be so much more than a remix. She’d recorded these beautiful, uplifting vocal lines and had come up with joyous new riffs that recalled for me the best bits of the 90s trance/euphoria that I had grown up loving. I got a beautiful sense of nostalgia and a true heart-lifting joy the first time I heard it, and it was so painless to take it from there to a finished piece – related and born out of Luminous Beings but very much its own thing.”
Owens on working with Hopkins:
“‘Luminous Spaces’ initially began as a remix I did for Jon, which I also wrote vocals on top of. I sent the whole track to Jon for feedback and this lead to the start of a more collaborative effort, with him adding extra sound design/ production, and a new intro and outro, which I loved! The exchanging of ideas back and forth made it an extra special process for us and is why he decided to upgrade it to a full and proper collaboration. Our worlds truly colliding!”
Kelly Lee Owens has recently worked on remixes for Bjork, Mount Kimbie, St Vincent and Jenny Hval.
Photo credit: Matthew Mumford
