MP3: “Weapons III (Polyphonic Remix)” via XLR8R Exclusive
MP3: “Weapons V” via LA Record
Classically-trained composer Son Lux (Ryan Lott) has kept busy in the wake of praise for his last album At War With Walls & Mazes, capturing the attention of tastemakers as diverse as NPR, Okayplayer, Pitchfork and composer Nico Muhly. He will release his Weapons EP on anticon. this February while working up his sophomore follow-up. This week, Asthmatic Kitty will release multiple EPs of My Brightest Diamond remixes, one of which is all reworks by Son Lux. Lott also recently spent a good deal of time working on the upcoming These New Puritans album arranging brass and woodwinds.
Much of what gave At War With Walls & Mazes its unique appeal was Lott’s central objective: to create a body of songs that inhabited the pop spectrum whilst ditching binary form (verse-chorus) for something more akin to chant. On record, rhythms and words moved uninhibited around anchoring melodies; live, this freed Lott to reinvent each track during performances, either reorganizing bits solo via piano or arranging the parts for new ensembles and instruments.
In the time since Mazes, Lott has stayed busy composing – among other things – hours of music for dance companies from New York to Paris. But for him, the chant-based concept of the Son Lux debut required further investigation. The Weapons EP is Lott’s self-issued challenge to do just that – to use Mazes standout “Weapons,” whose primary melody haunts various points of that record, as a launch pad for a complete EP of material derived from a single source.
To this end, Lott built three new compositions around the original’s essential kernel and enlisted three trusted collaborators – Anticon artists Alias and Polyphonic, plus Muhly himself – to do the rest. The result is not only six unique reincarnations of “Weapons,” but a fractal work where melody becomes song becomes cycle, with one essence woven throughout.
