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Son Lux

MusicBlog

Website: http://www.anticon.com/?js=yes

Bio: Meet a man driven wildly by music. A
man classically trained, but rewired with his
own two hands. A frequent collaborator,
occasional curator and consummate “man
behind the curtain” ... (more) now emerging at the
front of something yet unnamed.
Somewhere between the concert hall and
the club you’ll find his haunting liquid
soundscapes, born of hip-hop composition,
o’er-strung with chant, hinting at some
divine unreachable. Meet Son Lux.
Ryan Lott was born in Denver in 1979.
At 2, he moved to California; at 5, to
Connecticut. His father made industrial
adhesives; his mother made the home; he
had one brother and one sister. He was the
youngest. Piano lessons were a family rule
and Ryan began at 6, counting down, in
tears, the clicks of the 15-minute egg-timer. He hated it, and by the age of 12, he knew he wouldn’t be a classical
concert pianist; instead he’d be a composer. He’d offset this revelation by performing covers of “Lithium” and “Suck
My Kiss” on guitar in middle school dance bands. His parents brought him to Atlanta for high school; in turn, high
school brought him drums, punk bands and a piano teacher who smuggled him a few lessons in jazz and pop.
In his third year studying composition and piano at Indiana University, Ryan began collaborating with a ballet
and modern dance student who would become his wife. Writing music to her choreography set off a hunger in him
that would soon grow into megalomania. In the newlyweds’ post-collegiate home of Cleveland, Ryan conceived a
multimedia art gala dubbed CONNECT. The series’ second event featured 30 artists of various inclinations; he
collaborated with 20, while entertaining dance commissions countrywide. With his wife and two friends, he founded
the charitable ASH (Art Serving Humanity) Ensemble, and composed a piece for saxophone and tape that debuted in
Slovenia. Back home, Ryan found himself performing to New York City for the first time—from inside of the
Guggenheim—and collecting on two prestigious Ohio arts grants. In 2007, he moved to New York, accepting a job
as a fulltime composer. His 12-year-old self smiled; Ryan should have rested.
But something was growing inside of the man. Through all his teeth-cutting on various styles and
accomplishment through collaboration, there was something pushing against his guts: Ryan Lott needed to go solo.
For three years he’d been compulsively collecting sounds—thousands of them—one and two-note fragments
sampled from his personal collection and the local library’s. He turned his trained ear to recognizing consistent aural
hues, built a palette, then began arranging not by melody—as a composer would—but by rhythm, as a beatmaker.
He’d been making an album without realizing it. Now, for the first time, Ryan set out to make the music inside of
him. It’d be a sort of pop, but divorced from verse-chorus form—memorable music without a hook. And he’d sing
(also a first), but not traditional lyrics. His words would be small snippets—things read or overheard—open-ended
and repeated like chants. Single notes became pulsing electronic orchestras; simple words became transcendent. Son
Lux was born. And with it, the album At War with Walls and Mazes.
As befits the Ryan Lott legacy, Son Lux’s debut performance was a headlining college festival slot alongside
Sufjan Stevens and Emmylou Harris (the result of winning a songwriting competition). His second show was at New
York’s Knitting Factory, opening for Sole. Played live, At War becomes a thing of shifting parts and rhythms, Ryan
breaking down the songs and reassembling at will, while overhead digital visuals warp, coil and collide in
improvised harmony (courtesy of At War cover artist Joshue Ott). The impression left is warm and colorful with
smatterings of darkness, something alien yet familiar, easy but indefinable. Like all good art, Son Lux is tapped
directly into that great otherworldly unknown that feels right at home in the world we actually know.
Ryan composes two pieces of music a day for Fluid NY, a thriving editorial house, recently wrapped his third
large-scale collaboration with the acclaimed Gina Gibney Dance company, and is working on the next Son Lux
album. (less)