[one_half last=”no”]
NBHAP Rating: 4/5
[/one_half]
[one_half last=”yes”]SON LUX
Bones
Release-Date: 23.06.2015
Label: Glassnote
Tracklist:
01. Breathe In
02. Change Is Everything
03. Flight
04. You Dont Know Me
05. This Time
06. I Am The Others
07. Your Day Will Come
08. Undone
09. White Lies
10. Now I Want
11. Breathe Out
[/one_half]
Film Scores and Soundscapes
SON LUX founder Ryan Lott isn’t the kind of musician that creates songs by picking up a guitar and scraping a few chords together. Instead, the American is a musical auteur who creates painfully detailed soundscapes, showing off the talent that has seen him called in to score films (including 2013’s The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby and this year’s Paper Towns) and led to collaborations with SUFJAN STEVENS and LORDE. SON LUX initially began as Lott’s solo project before the band became a trio with the addition of guitarist Rafiq Bhatia and drummer Ian Chang. Now with all three sharing composing duties, SON LUX are back with their new album, Bones.
Carefully Constructed
This is EDM that manages to avoid the oppressive, crude whomping that the genre can occasionally fall into. Instead, the tracks on Bones are carefully and delicately constructed. You Don’t Know Me is a powerful assertion of independence, as Lott puts distance between himself and someone who “drank your wine from my heart”. I Am The Others is dark and ominous, loaded with restrained tension and propelled along by clicking beats. Undone is softer and more subtle, the fragility of Lott’s voice juxtaposed against a quicksand, ever shifting musical background.
Angst and Euphoria
The album peaks with Change is Everything, a track that perfectly distils the SON LUX method into one song. It opens with a harsh bleeping that sounds like a frightened laptop trying to scare off predators, before Lott’s raw, torn vocal takes centre stage and then builds up to a thumping chorus. The song is simultaneously tortured and triumphant, a perfectly soundtracked mixture of angst and euphoria. And that description holds for much of the album. Bones opens with the track Breath In and closes with Breath Out, which is fitting because the album is such an intensely captivating musical trip that it doesn’t feel safe to relax until it ends. Bones is an electronic symphony, a remarkably well-crafted album.
Bones is a collection of immaculately detailed and delicately constructed electronic music. SON LUX have created an album remarkable for its musical diversity and emotional intensity.
Reminder: SON LUX comes to Germany! On October 27th the electronica trio will play at Uebel & Gefährlich in Hamburg and one day later, October 28th at the Bi Nuu in Berlin. Both dates are presented by NOTHING BUT HOPE AND PASSION. Get your tickets here.
—