Written & Performed by Ryan Lott 
in February 2011 

Additional Vocals: 
Katie Chastain (All The Right Things) 
Jace Everett (Leave The Riches) 
Peter Silberman (Rising, Leave the Riches, Let Go) 
DM Stith (Rising, All The Right Things, Let Go) 
Shara Worden (Leave The Riches) 

Featuring members of yMusic: 
Hideaki Aomori, Clarinet 
CJ Camerieri, Trumpet 
Clarice Jensen, Cello 
Rob Moose, Violin & Acoustic Guitar 
Nadia Sirota, Viola 
Alex Sopp, Flute & Piccolo 

Judson Crane, Celesta 
Steve Temme, Saxophones 
Ryan Fitch, Drums (Claws) 
Darren King, Percussion (Chase) 
McKenzie Smith, Percussion (Chase) 

Recorded & Mixed by Ryan Lott at Butter Music + Sound, NYC 
Mastered by John McCaig at Panic Studios, Seattle
credits
released 17 May 2011

We Are Rising

The new single from the forthcoming Son Lux LP, "We Are Rising," out 4/26/11 on Anticon.

---

For his second album as Son Lux, New York’s Ryan Lott did a very un-Son Lux thing. He recorded "We Are Rising" in a month -- the shortest month of the year, actually -- while NPR tracked his every move. This, as opposed to the making of his lauded 2008 debut, "At War With Walls And Mazes", which he slowly built in complete privacy over nearly three years. Of course, he didn’t plan it this way. He simply awoke one late January morning to find a message from All Songs Considered titled, “You busy?” The annual RPM Challenge, an international open call to create an album in 28 days, had been issued and Lott had been tapped. How could he say no?

Lott was, in fact, quite busy. Both with his day job at SoHo post house Butter Music + Sound, where "We Are Rising" was recorded, and with the painstaking assembly of what would’ve been the sophomore Son Lux album. But none of those ideas were allowed into this, so Lott shelved them and instead ran headlong into what would become an exquisitely arranged album of classical notions, modern electronics, unusual pop and transcendent emotion. He made the deadline, and got by with a little help from his friends: folks like the yMusic sextet (Antony, Sufjan, the National), DM Stith, Jace Everett and Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond).

Listening to "We Are Rising", it’s hard to believe the record came together in a rush. “Flickers” offers a paced introduction -- a delicate array of woodwinds, strings, glassy digitalia and synth throb that lifts Lott’s parched quaver into the clouds. Triumphant standout “Rising” follows, bursting in waves of static-smacked keys and choral bliss (Lott and Stith, joined by the Antlers’ Peter Silberman). By the song’s end, it becomes something like the Faint reimagined by Nico Muhly. String-driven late album highlight “Let Go” starts spare and eventually builds into a gorgeous surging symphony of sounds both imagined and real.

Perhaps what the album owes most to its odd upbringing is an inherent unpredictability. Lott picks up the guitar for “Leave The Riches,” a thickly haunted piece that pits Everett’s country baritone against Worden’s operatic coo. And “Claws” is noisy, fuzz-caked and lumbering, while its predecessor “Chase” is all about the details: violin and trumpet tracing intricate circles around percussion provided by members of Midlake and Mutemath. By the time "We Are Rising" closes with the chiming, skittering “Rebuild,” Lott has staked claim over an entire universe of sound, expanding the Son Lux oeuvre in exponential terms, almost accidentally, for years to come.

"We Are Rising" is out on Anticon 4-26-11.


Rising

The second single from the forthcoming Son Lux LP, "We Are Rising," out 6/14/11 (CD) and 6/28/11 (Vinyl) on Anticon.

---

For his second album as Son Lux, New York’s Ryan Lott did a very un-Son Lux thing. He recorded "We Are Rising" in a month -- the shortest month of the year, actually -- while NPR tracked his every move. This, as opposed to the making of his lauded 2008 debut, "At War With Walls And Mazes", which he slowly built in complete privacy over nearly three years. Of course, he didn’t plan it this way. He simply awoke one late January morning to find a message from All Songs Considered titled, “You busy?” The annual RPM Challenge, an international open call to create an album in 28 days, had been issued and Lott had been tapped. How could he say no?

Lott was, in fact, quite busy. Both with his day job at SoHo post house Butter Music + Sound, where "We Are Rising" was recorded, and with the painstaking assembly of what would’ve been the sophomore Son Lux album. But none of those ideas were allowed into this, so Lott shelved them and instead ran headlong into what would become an exquisitely arranged album of classical notions, modern electronics, unusual pop and transcendent emotion. He made the deadline, and got by with a little help from his friends: folks like the yMusic sextet (Antony, Sufjan, the National), DM Stith, Jace Everett and Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond).

Listening to "We Are Rising", it’s hard to believe the record came together in a rush. “Flickers” offers a paced introduction -- a delicate array of woodwinds, strings, glassy digitalia and synth throb that lifts Lott’s parched quaver into the clouds. Triumphant standout “Rising” follows, bursting in waves of static-smacked keys and choral bliss (Lott and Stith, joined by the Antlers’ Peter Silberman). By the song’s end, it becomes something like the Faint reimagined by Nico Muhly. String-driven late album highlight “Let Go” starts spare and eventually builds into a gorgeous surging symphony of sounds both imagined and real.

Perhaps what the album owes most to its odd upbringing is an inherent unpredictability. Lott picks up the guitar for “Leave The Riches,” a thickly haunted piece that pits Everett’s country baritone against Worden’s operatic coo. And “Claws” is noisy, fuzz-caked and lumbering, while its predecessor “Chase” is all about the details: violin and trumpet tracing intricate circles around percussion provided by members of Midlake and Mutemath. By the time "We Are Rising" closes with the chiming, skittering “Rebuild,” Lott has staked claim over an entire universe of sound, expanding the Son Lux oeuvre in exponential terms, almost accidentally, for years to come.

All The Right Things

Flickers

Leave The Riches

Flowers

Chase

Claws

Let Go

Rebuild

From the start, Son Lux has operated as something akin to a sonic test kitchen. The band strives to question deeply held assumptions about how music is made and re-construct it from a molecular level. What began as a solo project for founder Ryan Lott expanded in 2014, thanks to a kinship with Ian Chang and Rafiq Bhatia too strong to ignore. The trio strengthened their chemistry and honed their collective intuition while creating, releasing, and touring five recordings, including LPs Bones (2015) and Brighter Wounds (2018). A carefully cultivated musical language rooted in curiosity and balancing opposites largely eschews genre and structural conventions. And yet, the band remains audibly indebted to iconoclastic artists in soul, hip-hop, and experimental improvisation who themselves carved new paths forward. Distilling these varied influences, Son Lux searches for equilibrium of raw emotional intimacy and meticulous electronic constructions.