Son Lux’s video Out Into Us (Slow Down) imagines the title track from their ninth studio album, Out Into Us as an expressionistic landscape. Guitarist Rafiq Bhatia notes,

“In this age of device dependency and information onslaught, we’re drawn to the legacy left by past pioneers like DJ Screw or Delia Derbyshire who used technology to take the tempo down. Sound can create a sanctuary — a space in which we can remember what it feels like to be present in our bodies and lost in our thoughts. When you decrease the playback speed of a piece of music, you can really linger in its hidden corners and shadows: passing tensions and moments of release become whole rooms you can step into and stay [in] for a while.”

This video was commissioned by MASS MoCA, Caviar, and Pioneer Works, and created in collaboration with director Alex Cook.

Out Into Us (Slow Down) will screen continuously at ICA Philadelphia starting Friday, October 9 through Sunday, October 11, 11am – 6pm in the Tuttleman Auditorium.

 

About Son Lux:
From the start, Son Lux has operated as something akin to a sonic test kitchen. The Academy Award® and BAFTA-nominated band strives to question deeply held assumptions about how music is made, and reconstruct it. What began as a solo project for founder Ryan Lott expanded in 2014, thanks to a kinship with Ian Chang and Rafiq Bhatia too strong to ignore. The trio strengthened their chemistry and honed their collective intuition while creating, releasing, and touring six records, including Brighter Wounds (2018) and triple album Tomorrows (2021). The result is a carefully cultivated musical language rooted in curiosity and balancing opposites that largely eschew genre and structural conventions. And yet, the band remains audibly indebted to iconoclastic artists in soul, hip-hop, and experimental improvisation who themselves carved new paths forward. 

Distilling these varied influences, Son Lux searches for equilibrium of raw emotional intimacy and meticulous electronic constructions. Son Lux scored A24’s Best Picture winner Everything Everywhere All at Once for which they were nominated for two Academy Awards and a BAFTA. The full score album features new collaborations with Mitski, David Byrne, Randy Newman, and Moses Sumney, among others. They recently scored Marvel Studios’  Thunderbolts* and Bassam Tariq’s upcoming Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother. 

About Alex Cook:
Alex Cook, a Los Angeles-based director, possesses a unique style characterized by his expressive and evocative imagery. His work has been recognized and featured on NPR, Vimeo Staff Picks, Nowness, Directors Library, and Variety, among others. His short film for Son Lux’s Undertow received the “Best Alternative International” award at the UK Music Video Awards in 2023, as well as the Camerimage “Golden Frog” for Best Music Video. 

His work has also received an additional nomination at Camerimage and secured the Silver Screen at the Cannes YDA’s, along with garnering recognition at various other awards such as the Young Guns award, Kinsale, Berlin Commercial, and 1.4 Awards, among others. 

 

Support

Programming at ICA is made possible in part by endowed support from the Emily and Jerry Spiegel Fund to Support Contemporary Culture and Visual Arts and the Lise Spiegel Wilks and Jeffrey Wilks Family Foundation, Bernstein Public Engagement Fund, and Hilarie L. & Mitchell Morgan.