Foto-© Anna Powell-Denton
Nach ihren Oscar- und BAFTA-nominierten Soundtrack-Arbeiten zu Everything Everywhere All at Once und zuletzt Thunderbolts melden sich Son Lux endlich wieder mit einem regulären Studioalbum zurück. Out Into, das am vergangenen Freitag via City Slang erschienen ist, wirkt dabei wie eine bewusste Gegenbewegung zur Größe und Opulenz ihrer Filmmusiken: persönlicher, unmittelbarer und emotional offener. Die erste Single Endlessly gab dafür bereits die Richtung vor und verbindet treibende Percussion, hymnische Melodien und eine Botschaft über Selbstakzeptanz zu einem der direktesten Songs, den das Trio bislang veröffentlicht hat.
In unserem Interview sprechen Ryan Lott, Rafiq Bhatia und Ian Chang darüber, warum sie bei Out Into stärker denn je ihrer Intuition vertraut haben, wie spontane erste Ideen zum kreativen Kompass des Albums wurden und weshalb diesmal bewusst keine Gastmusiker beteiligt waren. Außerdem geht es um den Einfluss ihrer Filmarbeit auf den Schaffensprozess, die Suche nach Menschlichkeit in der Musik, ihre kritische Haltung gegenüber KI und die Frage, wie sich Veränderung, Verlust und Neuanfänge durch die neuen Songs ziehen. Ein Gespräch über kreative Instinkte, fragile Schönheit und die Kunst, sich immer wieder neu zu finden.
Has your experience in the film world, as soundrackers, changed your approach to music at all?
Ian: Each film we’ve scored has taught us a lot, and the experience overall has been one of expansion. We’ve gotten to work with orchestra, choir, and a whole host of dream collaborators. As an unplanned natural reaction to this, with Out Into, we ran in the opposite direction, and made an album that focuses on the collaboration between the three of us, in fact I think it is the only Son Lux album with no guests!
How was the experience of working in this environment?
Ian: “It takes a village” is a phrase that is used too often, but that’s 100% true for film, and we love being part of these projects that combine so many disciplines and expertises of talented folks to bring to life. It’s incredibly rewarding, and especially so that we’ve been fortunate to work on films that we really believe in. Through the process of making music to best serve these stories, we’ve always found ourselves uncovering new creative ground as a band, which is very invigorating. It is also a humbling experience to work in film, you have to get very comfortable with making and killing lots of ideas!
You rely more on your intuition this time around, on your profound instinctual draft-version of the song: Why? Does editing and technical production blemish the songs? If so, why?
Rafiq: After years of experimentation, we’ve found that there really is something special about the moment in which an idea germinates. Though there’s a lot that one can do to build on an idea using post production and editing, we’ve also found that sometimes, the longer you spend with an idea, the more your conception of how it should be expressed hardens, and it’s almost as though the listener can feel that brittleness. One of our key collaborators—a mixing engineer named Chris Tabron—talks about the effect that acclimation has on his work, and how he has designed his process specifically around trying to express and implement ideas before his ears and his mind adjust to the way things already sound. This may seem like an abstract concept, but we’ve all seen someone read a speech that they clearly worked very hard on, that seemed very good when it was written on a piece of paper, yet falls completely flat in the moment in which it is being read.
You deliberately decided to be overtly present in the record as creators and contributors, which is felt in the music, how did you conceptualize that methodology with this album?
Rafiq: I’m not sure it was a methodology we planned from the top down so much as it was what we realized was happening when we went to start making this batch of music. Son Lux has historically been something of a family affair where we invite a lot of friends into the fold of whatever we’re making, and scoring films has made that even more the case in terms of working with orchestras and lots of special guests. So, when it came time to make some more music of our own, I think we really just relished the opportunity to do something more intimate that would allow us to rediscover our core relationship. And it didn’t hurt that the ideas immediately began flowing out so fully-formed in this intimate setting.
Ian: In the past, we’ve often started by getting in the studio to mine musical ideas that can sometimes be granular to use as building blocks for songs, usually focusing a lot on getting textures and gestures that inspire us. This time, we wrote a lot of the music together, sitting in a room at our instruments. The songs “No God Like a King” and “Out Into Us” are great examples of this. This method was not something that we really conceptualized, it was something that unfolded in an organic way.
This album feels very tactile, present and organic, especially with Summer is Gone I felt there was a push and pull of sounds, incidental and unpredictable: When working in the studio, do you look for deliberate experimentation or do you have a strict idea of what you want to do? Generally, what is your process like?
Rafiq: In general, I think we try to stay away from anything “strict”—that’s no fun! We are very deliberate, though… but sometimes, being deliberate is about intentionally creating space to listen, to be surprised, to encounter the unexpected and respond to it. We’ve all been making music together and individually for a long time, and I think we all crave shocks to our system(s). But we also are quite sensitive to the level of depth and feeling the end result needs to have, and we continue to search until it gets there.
You have been quite outspoken about AI and that it removes the “hands” from the music; What is your fear with AI exactly?
Ian: Speaking personally, I don’t have qualms with it as a technology in a vacuum. It clearly has the ability to have a positive impact. The thing I take issue with is that at large, it is something that mainly serves large corporate interests with very little regulation, and that is very dangerous and exploitive with technology this powerful! As far as text-prompt-generative AI goes, it doesn’t interest me at all and I wish it didn’t exist. It feels like an assault on our collective human spirit.
How do you then inject humanity, something so complex and personal, into a song?
Rafiq: Human beings are irregular creatures—our heartbeats aren’t quantized, we move through the world differently on different days, in ways that are dependent on (or at least sensitive to) thousands of factors, from how well we slept to the light and temperature to whether or not our crush texted us back. We all have different constitutions, different facets and different proclivities. But we also share a sensory apparatus that makes life feel vivid, the way certain scents can trigger a rush of memories, or the way some sounds and resonances signal danger while others tell us it’s safe to let our guard down. When we’re in tune with the way those systems work within ourselves and search for what activates them, we often discover things that resonate within others as well.
You’ve mentioned elsewhere that there are more overtly political lyrics on this record, so politics shapes music, but how do you want the music to shape politics?
Ryan: I don’t make music for the purpose of shaping anything. I make music in response to an insatiable urge to make music, and I desire for its sound and its lyrics to reflect something about the world around and within me.
How do you see your role as musicians with this? As political activists?
Ryan: It’s weird to frame one’s identity in terms of their “role.” We control what we can control, and nothing more. I feel a responsibility to be honest, and to use the time and energy I’ve got to do good.
How do you think the music industry in general can contribute to tpolitical matters?
Ryan: With respect to activism, I suspect that the cumulative efforts of individual artists dwarf any impact that’s possible from a collective, general effort. This is likely especially true considering that the music industry is not monolithic.
The title, Out Into, is a paradoxical contrasting phrase: Where did this idea stem from?
Ryan: Every exit is an entrance.
It explains something transitional; have you experienced any transition in your career or the way in which you make music? If so, what was the most important lesson that derived from that transition?
Ryan: Hopefully I’m constantly changing. Maybe what we think of as a “transition” is actually a perceptual event, a moment of noticing that “now” is not the same as “before.” The more that time stretches out behind me, the less I see transitional contours. It’s all one, long crossfade. Every exit is an entrance.
Why do you think transition is important?
Ryan: While I think everything is always in a state of transition, there are moments of clear acceleration and rapid change. Rapid change always feels more important, but I’m not sure it is.
Focusing on a few songs, W24ant you to love, proclaims a sense of desire, even the title is not about loving someone, but just the capacity for love (right?).
Ryan: To me, the song’s about how we all exchange what’s priceless for what’s worthless, and the regret that follows. Judas Iscariot and those thirty pieces of silver. But I hope it means other things to people, too. I like how you’re hearing it.
Even If It Hurts, to me is about perseverance, honesty; what do these themes mean to you?
Ryan: That’s a fine interpretation. Maybe the song is also the other side of the coin from Want You To Love. Sometimes we can lay down or let go of a part of ourselves in exchange for something—or someone—better.
In this song particularly, your voice came through having a very distinct sadness, as there is a level of raspiness and articulation that feels so brittle, was this choice of emphasis deliberate?
Ryan: I honestly can’t help but sound sad when I sing. And yes, it’s brittle. The fragility and “breaking” quality is a natural aspect of my voice that I’ve chosen to lean into.
How did you discover your ability for this type of vocalization?
Ryan: I played piano from an early age, but I was in college in music school before I felt that there was any use for my voice. I was in a class called International Vocal Ensemble, where we sang music of non-European traditions. As soon as I didn’t have to sound “pretty” or “normal,” as I understood those words at the time, I could do a few interesting things. And learning about vocal traditions outside of conservative European practice was permission-giving. I didn’t begin singing then, but as I started working on what would become the first Son Lux record, I remembered that I didn’t have to sound like anyone else to sound beautiful. Bob Dylan was a constant reminder, too.
Son Lux live:
27.10.2026 Berlin, Huxleys
