Lux Prima by Karen O and Danger Mouse
by Lana Fleischli
Do you have that song that you thirst for? You hear it once and you want to hear it over and over again, just to experience the lyrics or sound. That’s how I felt when my mom played “Turn The Light” for me. It didn’t help that the album wasn’t out yet, so I couldn’t listen to it on the bus early in the morning-- the times of day that I got to tune the world out and listen to whatever I wanted to in my headphones. My mom manages Karen O, so she played Lux Prima for me before it came out, and I couldn’t get the song on my phone until it was released. Perhaps that made me want to listen to it more. Doesn’t everyone want what they can’t have?
Finally a few months later, Lux Prima came out for real. This album is one of my favorite albums because of Karen O’s soft and magical voice, and because of Danger Mouse’s music production that provokes visceral imagery. It’s one of those albums that is an album. You can tell it all came from one idea. It’s intangible and I can’t fully wrap my head around it, but that’s what keeps bringing me back. The point of the album was for it to become an art piece, which I would soon experience.
On April 19th, 2019, I went to the Lux Prima exhibit. The experience was supposed to be the first of many-- a tour which started at the Marciano.
It was an immersive music experience that centered on a rock. That was the inspiration, and I’m not sure where that came from. The thought that the whole idea of Lux Prima, an amazingly beautiful and magical album was based on a rock was odd to me, but when I saw the experience, I understood it (at least in my own way).
We sat on the ground and circled the rock, which was on a pedestal and was probably seven or eight feet. The lights dimmed to dark and the lights began, and certain songs on the album played. It was cool how the lights reflected on the rock and the walls. It felt very metaphorical to me. I tried to figure out how the rock and the light related to the music. To me, there were a lot of things swirling in my head after I saw it. Part of me thinks that, like the album itself, it plays with light and dark. The darkness of the room and the rock-- dense and cold-- are the darkness, whereas the lights represented light in the world. Another part of me went back to the magical feeling that the music in Lux Prima had, and I thought that the rock was a story. The rock held power and was letting it out in each song. The light was some magic that the rock held. That idea made me go down a rabbit hole of the story behind the rock. What universe does this rock live in? Was it cursed? How long has it held power? What let the magic out? Was it ever supposed to be a rock at all?
I think the point of Lux Prima and the exhibit is up for interpretation. The lyrics tell a story and are very ominous at the same time. In “Nox Lumina”, Karen O just repeats the lyrics over and over again: “Somewhere in my room, sometimes I don’t lock the door, everytime I close my eyes, someone else’s paradise…”. It’s mysterious and engaging, and keeps the audience in anticipation because, at least for me, I’ve been listening to this album for two years, and I’m still confused! I’m still looking for the storyline, but it changes, which is so cool.
