Even in the increasingly crowded field of electronic music, Kelly Lee Owens' debut LP arrives as a wonderful surprise. An album that bridges the gaps between cavernous techno, spectral pop, and krautrock's mechanical pulse, Kelly Lee Owens brims with exploratory wonder, establishing a personal aesthetic that is as beguiling as it is thrillingly familiar.

It is first and foremost Owens' vision, a record that exudes a startling level of intimacy even in its largest-sounding moments -- such as "Arthur," a percolating mixture of looped vocals and rustling rhythms that rides on a perpetual near-crescendo. The song is a tribute to the late iconoclastic musician and kindred spirit Arthur Russell: "He wrote music and stayed true to his vision up until the day he died, " Owens explains. "He didn't compromise as an artist, and those are the kind of people I look up to -- people who know what they want." On S/T Owens translates that self-assertiveness into a record that explores a variety of moods -- sadness, anxiety, darkly shaded ecstasy -- with a trippy-eyed clarity and confidence that only bodes well for the future.