Join Rain on LaunchLeft today as they welcome Oscar-nominated Son Lux to kick off Qasim Naqvi's launch. Tune in for an engaging conversation with Ryan, Ian, Rafiq, and Qasim Naqvi as they discuss their unique experiences and creative processes in music-making. This versatile group excels as a live band, studio recording artists, and composers, embracing various aspects of the art they cherish. As a special treat, you'll have the privilege of hearing Qasim Naqvi's captivating performance of "The Curve" at the end of the episode.

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LaunchLeft Podcast hosted by Rain Phoenix is an intentional space for Art and Activism where famed creatives launch new artists. LaunchLeft is an alliance of left-of-center artists, a curated ecosystem that includes a podcast, label and NFT gallery.

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IN THIS EPISODE:

[02:23] Ryan tells how he and Rafiq came to collaborate. 

[08:25] Ian explains how they became composers for Everything, Everywhere, All At Once. 

[10:26] Rafiq shares what they have been working on recently. 

[12:39] Ryan comments on the reward versus the work and how the work won out. 

[17:42] Qasim Naqvi reveals how he met the members of Son Lux, and they all reflect on their times together. 

[25:02] Ryan talks about how their music is visual, and Qasim Naquiv discusses the modular synthesis while they land on making music with what they have. 

[40:03] Listen to “The Curve” by Qasim Naqvi. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS: 

The difference between performing on stage and recording in a studio is night-and-day.

When you find like-minded artists who appreciate each other's talents, you have a winning combination.

Sometimes it’s the accident that makes the music. It’s called working with what you have.

BIOGRAPHIES:: 

SON LUX BIO:

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 from a molecular level. 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 recordings, including Brighter Wounds (2018) and the triple album Tomorrows (2021). The result is a carefully cultivated musical language rooted in curiosity and balancing opposites that largely eschews 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 an equilibrium of raw emotional intimacy and meticulous electronic constructions. Son Lux has most recently scored the new Daniels film for A24, Everything Everywhere All at Once (March 2022). The full score album features new collaborations with Mitski, David Byrne, Randy Newman, and Moses Sumney, among others.

Based in New York, Rafiq Bhatia is the first-generation American son of Muslim immigrant parents who trace their ancestry to India through East Africa. Early influences such as Jimi Hendrix, John Coltrane, and Madlib—as well as mentors and collaborators including Vijay Iyer and Billy Hart—prompted him to see music as a way to actively shape and represent his own identity, not limited by anyone else’s prescribed perspective.

When Ian Chang describes his creative process, the phrase "third culture” keeps coming up. Born in the colony of Hong Kong in 1988, Chang has lived a nomadic life. Stationed out of New York for ten years and since relocated to Dallas, Texas, he built an impressive roster of progressive pop collaborators such as Moses Sumney, Joan As Policewoman, and Matthew Dear, among others, all while performing internationally and recording as a member of Son Lux and Landlady.

Ryan Lott makes his home in Los Angeles but grew up all over the United States. Music was the one constant in his formative years spent at the piano. In addition to an extensive career writing music for dance, he has become a sought-after composer for advertising, television, and film. Lott’s feature film credits include The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby (2014), Paper Towns (2015), and Mean Dreams (2017). He has co-produced and co-written music for and with Woodkid, Sufjan Stevens, and Lorde.

BIOGRAPHY: QASIM NAQVI 

Qasim Naqvi is a drummer and founding member of Dawn of Midi. Outside of his role in D.O.M., Qasim works on various projects, from electronic music to composing for orchestras, chamber groups, dance and film. 

His concert music has been performed/commissioned by The BBC Concert Orchestra, Jennifer Koh, The London Contemporary Orchestra, Stargaze, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Crash Ensemble, The Now Ensemble, The Erebus Ensemble, yMusic, The Helsinki Chamber Choir, Alexander Whitley, Cikada, The Chicago Symphony Orchestra(MusicNOW Season) and others. He has been a featured composer at the Musica Nova Festival in Helsinki, the Spitalfields Festival in London, Ultima Festival, Southbank Centre and the Rest is Noise Festival in Holland.

Qasim's soundtracks for the film have appeared on HBO, NBC, PBS, Showtime, New York Times Op-Docs, VICE Media, at The Tribeca, Sundance, Toronto, Rotterdam and London Film Festivals, at dOCUMENTA 13 and 14, The Guggenheim Museum, The Tate Britain (Turner Prize 2018), MOMA P.S. 1, IDFA, Berlinale and others. He has worked with such notable filmmakers as Laura Poitras, Mariam Ghani, Marc Levin, Naeem Mohaiemen, Smriti Keshari, Prashant Bhargava and Erin Heidenreich.

Acoustic trio Dawn of Midi has released two albums. Their most recent Dysnomia was acclaimed by Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Spin, The Guardian and the New Yorker. Radiohead personally picked Dawn of Midi as their support band for two sold-out concerts at New York's Madison Square Garden for their Moon Shaped Pool tour. 

Qasim earned his B.F.A in performance from the New School Jazz and Contemporary Music program and his M.F.A in composition and performance from California Institute of the Arts. He studied drums and performance with Andrew Cyrille, Joe Chambers, Reggie Workman, Buster Williams, Ralph Peterson Jr., Charlie Haden and Rashied Ali and composition with Wolfgang von Schweinitz, James Tenney, Morton Subotnick, Marc Sabat, Wadada Leo Smith, Michael Jon Fink and Anne LeBaron. He is a 2016 N.Y.F.A Fellow in Music and Sound and has received other fellowships and awards from Chamber Music America, The Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Mid-Atlantic Arts Council, Harvest Works, The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, S.T.E.I.M. and Art OMI.

Presently, Qasim lives in Brooklyn, New York and works on various projects as a freelance composer and drummer. He is represented by Erased Tapes Publishing.

RESOURCE LINKS

Podcast - LaunchLeft

SON LUX LINKS:

Son Lux Music - Website

Son Lux - Instagram

Son Lux - Twitter

Son Lux - Facebook

Son Lux - YouTube

Son Lux - Soundcloud

QASIM NAQVI LINKS:

Qasim Naqvi - Website

Qasim Naqvi - Instagram

Qasim Naqvi - Twitter

Qasim Naqvi - Bandcamp