Often when a musician or band go deep into film soundtrack work, they can lose a bit of momentum and impetus in their more regular recorded work. Alternatively, on other occasions such as this, the commitment to atmospheric textures, scene enhancing instrumental pieces and the spring of ideas that entails, can result in creative ideas piling up so high, the urge to offload the amassed work into a songs-based album becomes overwhelming. The surfeit of inspiration manifests itself in an LP collection jam packed with inventiveness and sonic layers that are a feast for the ears, which is exactly what I have found on ‘Out Into.’ This is the bands ninth album with their core members consisting of Ryan Lott, Rafiq Bhatia and Ian Chang. All the film soundtracks they have been involved with in recent years have certainly earned Son Lux kudos amongst peers and listeners alike and when you check out some of these credits, including ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once,’ Marvel’s ‘Thunderbolts’ and currently ‘Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother,’ it is clear they have paved their way into the upper echelons of the film and music world. Which is, for me, wonderful to witness because there are so many chancers and mediocre talents with nothing to show but a good networking team occupying so many of these positions, that it is refreshing to know artists breaking through on the strength of their ideas and productions have a chance too.

And those inspired ideas do flow with an abundance. These are songs first and foremost, but they are spacious enough to accommodate eruptions of tones and patterns with frequent changes seemingly thrown in just for the daredevil thrill of it all. Where their love of hip-hop can be detected in some breaks, Son Lux are also honouring almost old-fashioned composition processes mixed with an improvisational aesthetic, but their smartest trick is that despite these classicist instincts, they could not sound more 2026 if they tried. The vocals are all airtight and up close in the mix, this does not sound like it was recorded in an aged environment, modern vocal effect tropes are played with uninhibitedly and the present-day electronics that form the backbone of the sound manage to unlock the kind of limitless potential this approach really should inspire more often. The soundtrack commitments worked in their favour as well for, in the gaps between the cinematography focused sessions, they piled enthusiastically into the songs on ‘Out Into.’ On top of that, this was played out over a two-year period, a freedom from deadlines that has leant this album such a fully loaded potency. Lyrically too, Ryan Lott has been able to carve out a thematic curve, explaining that the songs “are about losing and finding ourselves. How we lose ourselves in relationships, in work, in our children, in our pursuits and desires.”

‘Want You To Love’ launches the album into a space that is instantly unsettling and strangely inviting, a warm lurching sound but one that is as disturbed and anxious as a scuttling hamster; something like the bastard love child of FKA Twigs and Alabama Shakes. ‘Endlessly’ intros with multiple voices demanding, and receiving, engagement before building into one of the albums most rousing, self-asserting moments with the lines “love what you love and feel what you feel,” a straight-shooting plea to find oneself and be at peace with that. ‘Even If It Hurts’ presents as ghostly and haunted, echoing synth lines and a spiralling breeze all speak to a sense of revelation and release. ‘You Could Be The One’ is also an atmosphere laden later highlight; a little mournful and pensive sounding to the extreme, motioned by a tremendously dolent guitar line, the tune hits a dramatic breakdown near its conclusion alongside the lines “I’m not letting go of you, despite everything you do.” In yet another contrast, ‘Summer’s Gone’ has an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink busyness, a stuttering jerkiness to the rhythm and a machine drill of notes laying a foundation for a track that is frantically agitated. Arguably the finest example of the album’s expansiveness is on nearly title track ‘Out Into Us.’ An almost spiritual mediation on the overall thematic connections of transformation and change, the progressions sound like they could continue to evolve indefinitely. In fact, there is an extended 17-minute version of the tracks video on view at MASS MoCa in Massachusetts, an installation that defiantly stands in contrast to the short attention span disease that infects so much modern music consumption. Son Lux could not make their point any better than with the wholly immersive ‘Out Into,’ an album that proves the deeper the creative journey embarked upon, the greater the rewards.

Danny Neill

You can get a copy of the new Son Lux album via this link: https://sonlux.bandcamp.com/