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LUSINE - LONG LIGHT
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TITLE:
Long Light
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CATNO:
GI427LPC1
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Vinyl record
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Downbeat Electronica Pressed on Dusk Coloured Vinyl Inc Download Card - Seattle-based producer Jeff McIlwain, aka Lusine, returns with his 9th full-length record, Long Light, marking twenty years since he first joined the Ghostly International roster. A cited influence for myriad electronic artists including London’s Loraine James and others, Lusine is known for visceral, kinetically-curious music that fuses techno, pop, and experimental composition. In recent years, McIlwain has pushed his craft skyward with more collaborative, song-forward work. Long Light shines the throughline; his signature looping patterns and textures are dynamic yet minimalist as ever. Structurally straightforward, tight, and bright, the material radiates as the most direct in his catalog, featuring vocal contributions from Asy Saavedra, Sarah Jaffe, and Sensorimotor collab- orators Vilja Larjosto and Benoît Pioulard. Lusine found his sound early on, but he’s never stopped pushing and pulling at its potential, patiently deconstructing the distractions and solving the puzzles. With Long Light, a laser-focused, process-driven artist reaches an exceptionally satisfying level of clarity and immediacy.
McIlwain sees the title, taken from the lyrical phrase “long light signaling the fall again,” written by Benoît Pioulard for what became the title track, as a guiding device that reflects several meanings. “There’s this sort of paranoia where you don’t know what is real, it’s an age of high anxiety and there are all these distractions,” McIlwain explains. “It’s like a fun house mirror situation.” Following the long light is the only true way through, and he holds that metaphor to the album’s recording, which also carried a cyclical nature akin to seasons. Like the start of fall, the album completes a period of cultivation; “Music making is a struggle and you have to have a ton of patience.” Long Light is proof that what lies beyond the noise, at the end of the figurative tunnel, is worth all the work it’s taken to get there.
Across the collection, McIlwain identifies the core sonic element, a vocal cut or a simple beat sequence, from which to build everything else off. On the opener “Come And Go,” he multiplies a vocal take from longtime collaborator Vilja Larjosto into a celestial choir, evoking their Sensorimotor standout “Just A Cloud.” It’s the bass hook on the single “Zero to Sixty,” curving around the voice of Sarah Jaffe, whose pliable range and cool delivery provide the source for Lusine’s unmistakable mapping. The chorus is Jaffe’s (“cold-blooded”) line repeated in step with melodic synth pulses and the buzzing deep bass. “I feel like I am dreaming / You make me feel like I am walking on a cloud / I don’t ever want to feel the ground,” sings Asy Saavedra (of Chaos Chaos) on “Dreaming.” This time McIlwain keeps the phrase intact, making subtle tweaks to the timbre and texture as chimes, clinks, and snaps oscillate. “Long Light” has it all: Lusine’s percussive mood-building, rendered with samples from drummer Trent Moorman, and a contortion of tender poetry, courtesy of friend Thomas Meluch, aka Benoît Pioulard (Morr Music, Kranky).
The album balances vocal pop motifs with some of Lusine’s strongest instrumental expressions, from ambient-minded foreshadowing (“Face- less,” “Plateau,” “Rafters”) to hypnotic head-nodders like “Cut and Cover” and “Transonic.”
It is rare to arrive at a landmark work two decades into one’s craft, but through repetition, refinement, and patience, Lusine extends a defining moment, an essential piece to his discography.
McIlwain sees the title, taken from the lyrical phrase “long light signaling the fall again,” written by Benoît Pioulard for what became the title track, as a guiding device that reflects several meanings. “There’s this sort of paranoia where you don’t know what is real, it’s an age of high anxiety and there are all these distractions,” McIlwain explains. “It’s like a fun house mirror situation.” Following the long light is the only true way through, and he holds that metaphor to the album’s recording, which also carried a cyclical nature akin to seasons. Like the start of fall, the album completes a period of cultivation; “Music making is a struggle and you have to have a ton of patience.” Long Light is proof that what lies beyond the noise, at the end of the figurative tunnel, is worth all the work it’s taken to get there.
Across the collection, McIlwain identifies the core sonic element, a vocal cut or a simple beat sequence, from which to build everything else off. On the opener “Come And Go,” he multiplies a vocal take from longtime collaborator Vilja Larjosto into a celestial choir, evoking their Sensorimotor standout “Just A Cloud.” It’s the bass hook on the single “Zero to Sixty,” curving around the voice of Sarah Jaffe, whose pliable range and cool delivery provide the source for Lusine’s unmistakable mapping. The chorus is Jaffe’s (“cold-blooded”) line repeated in step with melodic synth pulses and the buzzing deep bass. “I feel like I am dreaming / You make me feel like I am walking on a cloud / I don’t ever want to feel the ground,” sings Asy Saavedra (of Chaos Chaos) on “Dreaming.” This time McIlwain keeps the phrase intact, making subtle tweaks to the timbre and texture as chimes, clinks, and snaps oscillate. “Long Light” has it all: Lusine’s percussive mood-building, rendered with samples from drummer Trent Moorman, and a contortion of tender poetry, courtesy of friend Thomas Meluch, aka Benoît Pioulard (Morr Music, Kranky).
The album balances vocal pop motifs with some of Lusine’s strongest instrumental expressions, from ambient-minded foreshadowing (“Face- less,” “Plateau,” “Rafters”) to hypnotic head-nodders like “Cut and Cover” and “Transonic.”
It is rare to arrive at a landmark work two decades into one’s craft, but through repetition, refinement, and patience, Lusine extends a defining moment, an essential piece to his discography.
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Jeff McIlwain has been producing his visceral, melodic strain of abstract electronic music as Lusine for over 10 years now. Originally a Texas native, McIlwain met Shad Scott while living in LA and put out his self titled debut on Scott's imprint, Isophlux. He relocated to Seattle in late 2002 and began steadily releasing his music on Ghostly International. McIlwain has also contributed tracks to various compilations and remix releases on Mute, !K7, Kompakt, Asthmatic Kitty, and Shitkatapult. In 2009, he released the album, "A Certain Distance", which featured the single, “Two Dots.” His newest, critically acclaimed album, "The Waiting Room", was just recently released in 2013.
McIlwain has performed throughout the US and abroad, including the SXSW, Mutek, DEMF, and Sonar festivals, and sets at London’s esteemed Fabric nightclub, Tokyo's Unit, and Berlin's Berghain and Watergate nightclubs. He has been involved in the scoring of various film and commercial projects: co-scoring (with David Wingo) the 2008 film "Snow Angels" (with Kate Beckinsale and Sam Rockwell), and "The Sitter" (Jonah Hill) and scoring the 2009 film "Linewatch" (with Cuba Gooding Jr. and Omari Hardwick). McIlwain teamed up with David Wingo again this year to score the film "Joe" (Nicolas Cage) . He just recently wrapped up tours in Europe and Japan in 2013, and is prepping a new EP to be released sometime in 2014.
Texan Jeff McIlwain produces ambient/experimental techno that harks back to the era of classic early-'90s British techno (itself inspired by American sources in Detroit). Highly melodic though usually highly abrasive as well, his self-titled debut album was released in 1999 on the Isophlux label. He maintained a steady release schedule through 2003, with a full-length released each year -- in addition to an assortment of singles and EPs. Also performing under the name Lusine, in 2004 McIlwain signed to Ghostly for a series of releases including that year's Serial Hodgepodge, 2007's Podgelism, 2009's A Certain Distance, and 2013's Waiting Room. ~ John Bush, Rovi Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.