Chris Russell :: Lumen (Spotted Peccary Music)

On Lumen, Chris Russell trades the shadowed tones of Noir (Projekt, 2024) for radiant piano-laced atmospheres that echo his debut Labyrinth on Spotted Peccary Music, crafting eight luminous soundscapes that feel like stepping through a veil into widening light.

Radiant soundscapes beyond the veil

Lumen opens new windows to heaven, illuminating the major Antiochian mysteries and all things visible and invisible. The sound of Lumen evokes eight electronic sunrise atmospheres with steadily emerging  solar tones, electronic atmospheres suggesting natural light as well as the light of spiritual confirmation and knowledge. Chris Russell paints a picture in the mind’s eye with sounds, creating mixed media collages that come to life, adding more piano this time, combining actual field recordings with electronica. His otherworldly creations often call to mind abstract sci-fi visuals, music to peer behind the veil, an attempt to explore other realities. This new work has brighter textures, with more piano, compared to his more recent album, Noir (Projekt, 2024), and just a touch of the sounds of natural environments. He also pays homage to his first album on Spotted Peccary Music, Labyrinth (2017) by ending Lumen with a new piece inspired by our moon.

His father was a big believer in spiritualism, UFOs, Cryptids and Government Conspiracies, “I have seen and experienced things most people have no grasp on,” reveals Russell. “That all influences my deeper dive into creating soundscapes… Inspiration is all around. You have to slow down and observe.” Nature is also a big inspiration for the art he creates, he is at times bringing the energy from the forest into the studio, in pursuit of both nature and the supernatural. He continues, “I do not have a background in technical training, I spent about ten years playing and exploring electronic music in my bedroom, not being too serious. I started in the early days with two boomboxes, keyboards and a drum machine, I would bounce recorded tracks back and forth to add layers, one box playing and the other recording. It’s all just what I have figured out for myself.“

Opening with “Particles of Light” (8:28), the sound of tiny dots getting larger and larger as we travel between them, like a distant train in the long lonely night. Here, the wind is always blowing, constantly slightly swaying, getting a little stronger then a little more relaxed, rushing air and a casual easy floating melody often testing new ideas. Next, a series of floating chords describe the “Autumn Skyline” (3:31), overall the sky above is expansive, the wind is constant slightly swaying a little stronger then a little more relaxed, perfect for casting chords to build a few dreamy sequences, experimenting in interesting ways. A ringing vision of heaven starts the next track, “Candle Power” (7:05), this could be energized air passing through metal reeds, and rushing through subterranean tunnels, before shifting into an imaginary piano echoing and reverberating, and in the end it is raining a little bit. Vortices are whirling, closed-loop disturbances created in nature by many things including dolphins, tornados and water going down the drain, as well as smoke rings and fire rings. The 4th track, “Vortexon” (5:57) emerges slowly, and is about strange passageways, allowing a vortex to maintain its shape and travel a long distance with minimal energy loss, coming into a new dawn rising from the void, during the whole time things appear to be getting brighter.

Eight sunrises in electric light ::

“Luminescence” (5:52) includes some sounds that bring to mind breathing slowly in and out like the tides of the oceans, with combinations of bowed metal and distant electronic feedback. This could all be one long note, but there are layers of slight harmonic variations, sparkling granular sand rainbows blowing in the winds, air pushing through metal reeds, layering detailed rainbows and shimmering clouds. Soon we are facing into the heart of the sun. “Spectral Vision” (7:28), gets brighter and brighter, seemingly about to burst, riding through the color trails faster and faster, now relaxing and just riding on the reverberations. The phantom  piano arrives and chords are rising and shimmering, slowly getting brighter, with more modulating colors and more sparkling fragments.

Starting over in the darkness, we are catching the new sunrise. The orchestra warms as we continue always upwards, ominous and stupendous at the same time. “Light Without Heat” (7:38) sustains the momentum of illumination, quietly opening up our view of  the blooming sky by removing the roof.

We close under an expansive night sky with silver shadows, “Whisper Moon” (10:31). Here light’s interaction with matter has helped shape the structure of the universe, there are hints of dazzling color storms just rippling there across the distant infinite, almost like a continuously changing single note played by the universe’s infinite orchestra. This final track brings some of the moonlight upon the ocean, which keeps going on and on, getting more intense, feeling alive, getting brighter, then fading and turning around. But maybe there are two moons, one is in the water, and they whisper to each other, which becomes a sustained continuous sparkle.

Lumen is a shift away from the night’s ghostly atmospheres and darkness, into the light. Perhaps Lumen is the perfect soundtrack for going out at night stargazing, staring into the black void on a dark night, far away from the light pollution of the city. These eight excursions to the center of the universe and back clears the mind, gives insight, and somehow calms the frazzled spirits, suggesting through sound an intelligent curiosity for ancient wisdom, science, and imagination. Experience a series of sunrises from outer space, where the inspiration of both science and art combine perfectly. The constant listener is left with a sense of wonder and a source for warmth and illumination, conductivity and brilliance.

Lumen is available on Spotted Peccary. [Bandcamp]