WE ARE RISING

2011 Album (This Is Meru)

For his second album as Son Lux, 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. Quite different from the making of his lauded 2008 debut, At War With Walls and Mazes, which he slowly built in complete privacy over nearly three years, but he didn't plan it that 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? The result remains a vibrant collision of electronic transcendence and orchestral organics.

Next came We Are Rising REMIXED, a stunning reinvention of the 2011 LP featuring a diverse and talented crew of remixers. REMIXED reinvents We Are Rising nine ways, unpacking the original, letting it breathe, and allowing the songs to rise once again.

  • a seriously strong, intensely evocative record.

    – Consequence of Sound

  • Son Lux took the bait and came up with a pretty amazing record called We Are Rising, a sometimes strange, sometimes gorgeous and consistently surprising mix of electronic and pseudo-classical music.

    – NPR