Staff Reviews

Son Lux - We Are Rising

Review by Elliot McVeigh

All the ingredients are there, they’re just not combined in a wholly satisfying manner.»

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for his second album on anticon 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 editorial house butter music and 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).
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