“An entire album of one line songs…I don’t think anyone’s ever done that before” muses Ryan Lott, a.k.a. Son Lux.
A pop long-player with no verses, no choruses, that purposely abandons song structure familiar to western ears! Outrageous! Chants of small, simple, diatonic melodies at the core of eleven tracks? Prologues? Epilogues? Such was the modus operandi of Son Lux in his hypnotic, groove laden debut At War With Walls and Mazes - an album that wasn’t supposed to happen in the first place.
“I realized half-way through this record that I was actually making a record. My aesthetic was to go with sounds that were not originally created to fulfill a particular function within a song. The result is a lot of unique and different ‘performances’ for different purposes that were essentially pulled together.”
Son Lux is one aspect of Ryan Lott’s multi-faceted career. A student of composition and piano at Indiana University, Lott began writing music for modern dance and ballet when he met his future wife, a dance student. After graduation, they founded Connect, a multi-media art gala in Cleveland that featured thirty artists of various disciplines while Lott took on numerous dance commissions from around the country. Lott and his wife also started the philanthropic ASH (Art Serving Humanity) Ensemble which, among other activities, included a piece for saxophone and tape which made its debut in Slovenia. Now a full time composer living in New York City - he composes two pieces of music daily for Fluid NY, a thriving editorial house - Lott has performed at the Guggenheim Museum and has been awarded two prestigious Ohio arts grants.
Son Lux’s concert debut was a college festival bill with Sufjan Stevens and Emmylou Harris - ironically as a result of winning a song competition. Recently, Lott completed his third large-scale collaboration with the Gina Gibney Dance Company and is hard at work on a new EP. Lott’s alter ego of Son Lux allows him to follow his muse without confusing the public at large - or himself.
Though other musicians appear on At War… Lux’ personal compilation of thousands of sounds and musical fragments arranged by rhythm as opposed to melody (and sometimes vice-versa) offer endless possibilities. “What I was trying to do was mix everything up…it’s a maze, a puzzle that can be thrown up in the air in any situation and create an entirely different image.”
The album’s title emerges from a line in the track “War” which was either inspired by something a friend said or something Lott overheard in a conversation. Says Lott as Lux “creatively, this is an effort for me to sort of ‘war’ against a lot of the traditional conceptions of songs, whether it be hip-hop, rock, chamber music or whatever. I feel like I’m challenging a lot of the preconceived ‘walls’ between different genres and different elements of song which can go together. I’m hoping to create something beautiful and new.”
--Tom Semioli
Son Lux’ album At War With Walls and Mazes is released March 11, 2008.
Son Lux Myspace
