Son Lux
Brighter Wounds

The evolution of the Son Lux project, which began with the album "Bones" (Glassnote) in 2015 and the expansion of the project to include guitarist Rafiq Bhatia and drummer Ian Chang, can finally be said to be complete. "Brighter Wounds," in fact, the fifth album of the project founded by Ryan Lott in 2008 and released this past February 9 on City Slang, can be seen as the culmination of growth that, while not strictly concerning the type of sounds proposed in terms of "genre," opens up new perspectives that were made possible only through direct and continuous collaboration with new musicians. Yet, without deviating from the project's initial imprint, Ryan Lott—a classically trained musician and composer but also an expert sound engineer—has managed and steered this evolution with an awareness that today makes us recognize him as one of the central figures in the U.S. indie scene.

Indeed, "Brighter Wounds" could constitute one of the great surprises in terms of success and recognition in the world of more "mainstream" independent and alternative music. We are faced with an album that goes far beyond the trip-hop sounds proposed in the past and, true to a minimalist synthetic aesthetic, remixes Ryan Lott's past experiences (including collaborations with both Sufjan Stevens and pop music stars like Lorde and his brilliant productions as a film score composer) translating into a successful pop album.

Characterized by predominantly dramatic atmospheres and songwriting inspired both by personal experiences like fatherhood or the loss of a dear friend after a long battle with cancer and broader themes concerning the current state of his country on a social level, and what he defines as "the silence of protest," "Brighter Wounds" is an album where tracks succeed one another with a more cinematic character like "Forty Screams," "All Directions," more typically dubstep tracks ("Dream State," "The Fool You Need," "Surrounded"...), moments marked by intense drama bordering on the pathetic like "Slowly," "Aquatic," "Resurrection." A series of compositions that are at times heartbreaking yet also a source of wonder for sounds that alternate moments of chiaroscuro with a brightness composed of electric discharges and artificial rays of sunlight, and in which the openness to collaborations with trumpeter Dave Douglas and the half-craftsman, half-experimenter and shaman Arrington de Dionyso remains intriguing in a sound dimension where pop evidently does not only mean entertainment but also quality and content.