Son Lux will perform from its new album, Bones, at Gabe’s.
By Tessa Solomon
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With a haunting breathiness, the voice creeps over sharp clips of synth. Full backing vocals rise in wordless crescendos, trailing away.
Suddenly the beat explodes into a cracking, metal rave. It only lasts a minute before segueing into the next song on Son Lux’s new album, Bones.
Son Lux, the avante-garde electronic brainchild of musician and producer Ryan Lott, will perform at 7 p.m. today at Gabe’s, 330 E. Washington St. The tour for Bones, its third album, will be different from the previous two, as the artist becomes a trio by adding guitarist Rafiq Bhatia and drummer Ian Chang.
In a reflection of their new form as a trio, the band members responded to The Daily Iowan together over email.
“This record is the first effort from Son Lux in our new form as a trio,” they said. “As such, it represents the laying of the groundwork for, or the skeleton of, our collaboration. There’s also an element of ephemerality to the title, as we tended to focus on fleeting moments or ideas in sound, dust to dust.”
Son Lux employs unconventional beats with a penchant for experimentation.
“We tend to build songs backwards,” they said. “The harmony, melody, and lyrics tend to come last, and the sound design and beat come first. Imagine designing a house around a single chair. It’s kind of like that.”
Because of this, an easy genre categorization often eludes Son Lux.
They described their music as “Gangsta ass beats with a choir boy melody.” If that isn’t explicit enough, they continued by saying, “We’re always striving to create music that is both strange and familiar. Something that draws the listeners in but also thwarts their expectations.”
That unexpected gangsta beat is on display in such songs as “You Don’t Know Me.” Lott’s vocals scratch out a scene of confinement and disguise but also a yearning to rise and be free.
“This is also the most outwardly focused Son Lux album to date,” they said. “There’s a sense of urgency about our shared responsibilities to each other, to ourselves, and to the world around us.”
More so than on previous albums, the stirring lyrics spur the imagination.
“All of that being said, we purposefully leave lyrics open to interpretation,” they said. “It lets our audience step into the space provided by ambiguity, filling it with their own experiences and meaning.”
Audiences will have the opportunity to form their interpretation tonight at Gabe’s, as Son Lux reimagines its record for the stage.
“We treat [live and recorded performances] as separate media and try to tailor each experience to the strengths of its respective medium,” they said. “Live shows are a collective experience, and momentary risk takes on a unique meaning. The studio, on the other hand, allows for levels of detail and kinds of iterative processes that are impossible to communicate live.”
But the studio, they said, cannot capture “when the audience breathes with us, when they sing with us, when time feels slower, and we are present in each moment.”
