Album Review: Son Lux – Tomorrows


6.5/10

Son Lux Tomorrows




It’s both a cliché and an understatement to say we’re living in uncertain times, but as the fog of the latest crisis clears we may finally have the perfect soundtrack to our near-18 month shared experience. Whether or not you will want to revisit that in aural form is another question.

Long having prided themselves on being on the cutting edge of experimental electronica, Son Lux have evolved from one man (Ryan Lott) as sole contributor to a more traditional ‘band’.

After crafting his first three albums alone, Lott promoted Ian Chang and Rafiq Bhatia from live members to equal partners, the pair bringing their individually unique sonic approaches to add flourishes and texture to Lott’s germs of ideas.

Following the current trend of artists drip-feeding music which eventually forms one epic release (Pixies, Hayley Williams), the Tomorrows project has been recorded and released as a trilogy over the last year. Now, for the truly hardcore, all the music has been collected into one release. Unsurprisingly, it’s not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach.

At first glance it’s a hugely impressive piece of work. Each of the three chapters move the music on: Part I sets the scene and themes with a fusion of ethereal ambience, jazz-based guitar dalliances and gut-wrenching piano drama. Undertow in particular aims unashamedly for the tear ducts.

Yet while Part I is succinct and concise, Parts II and III are sprawling and unwieldy. The beats begin to lumber, the rhythms become unnecessarily complex and the screeching sounds begin to grate. There is much to enjoy, but it takes a hardy soul to work through it. The jangling, tribal Last Lights throws some welcome, effect-drenched vocals into the mix, while the trip-hoppy Prophecy keeps things fresh.

Speaking of vocalists, there are a handful of contributors who all add something: Kadhja Bonet’s sensual R&B eerily recalls FKA twigs on Plans We Make, while Kiah Victoria’s honey-glazed vocals on Vacancy add to a background hum of arpeggios and throbbing bass.

Meanwhile, the uncredited vocalist on Warning recalls, with incredible precision, the lesser-spotted Anohni (formerly of Antony & the Johnsons) and Holland Andrews’ operatic tone adds grandeur and scale to Sever.



The luxury of time and space allows the music to breathe and develop, which requests (rather than demands) the listener’s attention. But there’s just so damn much of it.

While some of the tracks evoke the stronger elements of Moby’s instrumental work (think God Moving Over The Face Of The Water, or 18), many of them pass by without leaving much, if any, impression.

Every now and again there is a pleasant surprise: Unbind comprises a string arrangement which could be from a ye olde British film score (The Railway Children leapt to your reviewer’s mind) before becoming a band piece with domineering, suffocating guitar. Proof that, when they choose, Son Lux can take the breath away.

The whole piece is driven by a sense of seeping dread, with moments of true poignancy. In that way, it’s a perfect soundtrack to the last 18 months, primarily depression and anxiety (the endless, grinding lockdowns) punctuated by moments of true beauty (the smile of friends and family).

Tomorrows can best be described as a score to a lost Darren Aronofsky project: unsettling, uncomfortable and exhausting. And ultimately incoherent.

Each individual album would stand well on its own terms but taken as a whole, it does get harder and harder to care and, by the end, you’re glad you’ve experienced it but you’re equally glad it’s over.

Richard Bowes

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