There are a lot of things pop music can set out to do. Obviously, commercially, often the goal is to achieve massive popularity and financial success, as the name of the genre entails. More interestingly though, is to think about what pop music can try to do musically. When making a pop album, the most common goal could be to get people to dance. Or, maybe, the goal is to make people feel happy and young, or inject energy into a movie scene or party.
But it’s not often that we see pop music with the effect of transporting you to another place. Genres like dungeon synth or black metal commonly take this as their main goal, getting you to envision yourself in another world for the duration of the album.
Take the albums At The Heart of Winter by Immortal or Transilvanian Hunger by Darkthrone — these are black metal records whose express goal is to use their oppressive blast beats and intense distorted guitars to evoke the feeling of being stuck in a brutal Norwegian blizzard. I’ve actually published a research paper detailing how that genre in particular often tries to capture climate and environment in sound, and exploring what might lead to that kind of intent.
Pop music, though? Usually this kind of mental transposition is not its goal. But let’s take the moment to ask the question: if a pop album were to take aim at the same target, and try to immerse you into a frigid winter landscape, what would that sound like? Moreover, what does winter even sound like musically? Can it take different forms?
This is the exact place where I feel Siberia by Lights takes its boldest strides. Through and through, it’s a sprawling tapestry of synth-pop that takes you into the depths of its Siberian isolation, and keeps you there for its entirety. Where the aforementioned black metal albums illustrate winter as an unrelenting, antagonistic tour-de-force from start to finish, Siberia instead explores many different facets of winter using a sleek, modern palette of icy synths, glitchy drums, and frosty vocals. I am unsure whether this was Lights’ direct intent when crafting this project, or if winter was simply the environment in which she made this album and thereby indirectly channeled it into the music. Nonetheless, to me, the whole album is frozen over with this icy aesthetic, each track capturing a different aspect of winter, illuminating its own part of this wintery collage. In doing so, it feels like Lights takes this loose concept-album structure and delivers an album that is at once varied yet incredibly cohesive, experimental yet immensely catchy, meticulous yet adventurous.
Into The Wild
Kicking it off with the title track, it’s something of a launching pad for the themes of the album.
From the busy parks,
To the icy tides
Someday we’ll decide
Where we want to live out our lives
For now we're two sparks
Tumbling along
Keeping the heat on
Even though summer's come and gone
...
I would sail across the east sea
Just to see you on the far side
Where the wind is cold and angry
There you'll be to take me inside
We'll find ways to fill the empty
Far from all the hysteria
I don't care if we suddenly
Find ourselves in Siberia
This track feels like the start of the journey. There’s a clear romantic component throughout the song, but the escapism inherent in the last few lines feels central to me. It’s enunciated further in the song’s outro where she sings “We’ll leave Canada, for Siberia” — a desire to leaving familiar grounds and going on a wild and dangerous journey.
These feelings of impending adventure are not only expressed in the lyrics, but to me, they’re reflected in the production as well. There’s a breakdown in the middle of the song, where everything grinds to a halt, with the synths and drums cutting out and giving way to a whirling arpeggiated saw — it always evoked for me the sound of a propeller starting on a jet plane or boat, conjuring an image of departing that comfortable place and heading out into the frozen wilderness. I think this yearning for risk and disruption to the mundane is especially interesting in contrast with the themes of her debut album, The Listening, which seemed to be about seeking safety and certainty in the process of growing up.
There’s also this idea of leaving the turbulence and noise of the city and isolating yourself in the polar tundra that I find so appealing. I’ve often watched documentaries about the people living in remote frozen locations like Yakutsk, Siberia or the McMurdo Station in Antarctica and fantasized about how, despite the severe environment, it must also feel somewhat meditative and relaxing to be so far from all the commotion of society. Something deep inside me is tugged at when I think of these isolated areas so untouched by urban sprawl. I think all of this is captured so perfectly in her CBC Music special, where she heads to Inuvik in the arctic Canadian North for the Sunrise Festival.
“Where The Fence Is Low” pulls at that same feeling of treading into the forbidden and foreign. If I recall correctly, Lights mentioned in an interview that this song was inspired by a dream she’d have, where there’s a fence with a certain spot where it’s lower, beckoning her to escape and venture out into whatever is beyond that fence. I really like the sense of impending danger this song elicits — “I’m off of my rope here, I’m off on my own here, where the fence is low”. Danger, but at the same time, adventure. The bridge later in the song just cements that feeling of adventure, and I really like how that bassy dubstep synth that plays during the hook almost has the churning ebb-and-flow of white water rapids, carrying someone away after losing hold of their rope. That’s ultimately the image this song conjures in my head, a person desperately fighting through rushing rapids in a sprawling tundra, reminiscent of the film Into The Wild. This is one of my favorite songs on this album, and sonically, that main synth whistle the song starts with is one of my favorite sounds I’ve heard in music, period. Pure ear candy.
One decision I want to make note of in these first two songs, which will surface in later songs as well, is how often in this album we hear post-choruses or bridges which are either an instrumental breakdown or forego any lead vocals with lyrics. Refer to how “Where The Fence Is Low” has this bridge that’s mainly an instrumental buildup and drop, complemented by non-lyrical vocalizations (“ohhhh”). Lights comes across to me as an artist who is more actively involved sculpting the production of her albums than other pop artists might be, and I think that is why we often hear her giving the instrumentation and production space to shine, whether that’s by carving out instrumental sections within songs, having her vocals sometimes further back in the mix during the crescendo of a song, or by having changes in instrumentation demarcate the structure of the songs. I really appreciate this aspect of her songwriting because with each project taking its own sound, I like hearing that sound given the spotlight for a few moments here and there.
Furthermore, I think this kind of song structure, where there’s a vocal hook followed an instrumental ear-candy post-chorus segment, has somewhat defined much of pop songwriting over the past decade (example, example). I didn’t hear it as much around the time this album came out, so I think Lights deserves some props for being ahead of the curve here.
The album then swings into what’s probably its biggest commercial hit: “Toes”. This song is so, SO good oh my god! If “Siberia” focused on the escapism and adventure that winter and Siberia could represent, and “Where The Fence Is Low” gave us a taste of the danger and apprehension of being taken by the unknown, then “Toes” delivers on the magical, wonderland side of winter. That main synth that pulses throughout the song glistens like snowflakes twinkling on a night of fresh snow. And that hook! It’s so catchy! This is the closest this album gets to a straight-forward pop song IMO.
Lyrically, there’s a sharp beauty that sticks out to me about the hook:
Oh, you capture my attention
Carefully listening, don’t wanna miss a thing
Keeping my eyes on you
Oh, you capture my attention
I’m anticipating
I’m watching and waiting
For you to make your move
I think the way this song approaches love is really unique, the hook seems to entirely find itself within that single moment where someone would be waiting in anticipation of what their lover is going to do in that second. It’s like being frozen in place, frozen in time, awaiting the next chess move, the next step in this dance between two people.
One of the most beautiful works of prose I ever read was the first chapter of Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust. If you haven’t read it, in this chapter, Proust offers the most enchanting description of the very second you wake up in the morning, and how, in that single moment amidst the darkness, you need to piece together your entire existence: pulled from whatever fantastical dream you were in, you now realize you’re in your bedroom, making out the silhouettes in this room, resolving those shadows in the darkness as your lamp, your shelf, your closet; then, remembering who you are, what happened yesterday, what will happen today. What I love about this chapter is the way it ascribes such rich meaning and depth to what is but a single fleeting moment in time. An entire chapter, for a single moment. And I think Lights does the same thing for me in this hook, capturing a single, solitary moment in vivid, exuberant detail.
In her Inuvik CBC special, she performs this song in a church there. That performance somehow adds even more magic to this gem of a song. The arctic surroundings, the acoustic warmth, Lights’ singing, the crowd joining in — it all just elevates the song so much that the performance sounds nothing short of transcendent to me. It truly gives me the feeling of being gathered with loved ones around a warm fireplace while a blizzard rages on outside.
Likewise, I love the vision for the official music video, which is pretty much just her walking through random locations in the city. I love lowkey videos that just involve a normal location and enjoying the moment within it — similar vibes are in the videos of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Run Away With Me”, “63/WDNG” by WDNG Crshrs, or Joanna Newsom’s “Sapokanikan”. Something in me gravitates more to videos that try to add magic to the mundane, imbuing an every day location with just a little bit more character.
This leads me to a quick tangent before moving onto the next song. There’s a song that Lights did well before this album that “Toes” sounds a natural progression of.
Here’s a hint: Siberia is not the first time Lights has written music about winter. Lights fans definitely know it!
Back in 2010, she made a song called “My Boots“, which personifies winter and carries a lot of that same wintery dance vibe I hear in “Toes”. The only difference now, which I’d actually say sets Siberia as a whole apart from the rest of her discography, is the abrasiveness and harshness that characterizes the album. Which isn’t to say “Toes” in particular is abrasive — it just carries a more matured edge to it which her previous work didn’t aim for, an edge further pronounced in the remainder of the album. I think with how “My Boots” came out after The Listening and before Siberia, there’s definitely a chance that song was a precursor of the aesthetics and themes she’s exploring in much richer detail here in this album.
Back to the album, I think the next song falls into the anthemic category of Lights songs, reminiscent of “Lions” and “Face Up” from The Listening. While I would place Lights’ music at this point in her career as usually capturing shimmery night-time vibes, “Banner” has this post-apocalyptic aesthetic to it in its lyrics, sound, and video that makes it stand out more among her catalog. The song sounds very dire and desperate, which the video does a great job bringing to life. I definitely get hints of Fallout and Mad Max from it. In hindsight, I can see a through-line from this song to the narratives and themes she would go on to explore in her conceptual fourth album, Skin & Earth, especially the comic book that released in tandem with it.
“Banner” and “Everybody Breaks A Glass” take a small step away from the winter theme lyrically, but sonically, they fit right in. The intensity is turned up here, the drums almost entirely covered by a coat of distortion, the synths and even the entire mix sometimes taking on a glitchy character to them (can I officially coin this sound as “pop with sharp edges”?).
Something I want to make note of here in these three songs before moving on is Lights’ lyrical style on this album. Where The Listening hit its mark employing writing that was direct and sincere, I feel Lights made a radical departure on this album, demonstrating instead this more abstract, fantastical writing style.
It’s always been something to marvel at for me. I feel like even when she’s writing what is otherwise a straight-forward love song like “Toes”, she has this abstract semiotic kind of writing. It feels like she always stops just short of saying something directly. It’s almost this gesturing, like she’s pointing towards the concept or message but not quite spelling it out, and you’re turning to look at what she’s pointing towards. There’s this feeling of not quite giving you the specificity needed to move on from the line, leaving you sitting there waiting for some form of closure to the gesturing. This is something that’s always stuck out to me about Lights’ music over the 10+ years I’ve been a fan.
There is a song from a later album that exemplifies this abstract writing the strongest, but on this album, “Everybody Breaks A Glass” is the epitome of this writing style — at times, this song gets really philosophical, which I honestly want to see so much more of in pop music. I figured I’d include an excerpt but the entire song has so much lyrical depth that I ended up deciding I’d share it all:
It's not a solid, not a soft thing
To pull the wool up like a smoke screen
Nobody does it like a prophet
It's gone before you know you lost it
There are reasons you keep your hands tied
There's certain things you shouldn't have tried
So if you gotta tell me something
You better go from the beginning
We all forget to sleep
And crash at someone’s feet
Everybody skips a beat
We let the chances pass,
The few we held so fast,
Everybody breaks a glass
And here I'm standing in the middle
Not just a little but a hill full
Wondering how I got a head cold
Wishing I didn't know what I know
It's never been about the money
We're worthy or we are not worthy
However much you've got on your plate
You're as good as you reciprocate
We all pretend to keep our tongue out of our cheek
Everyone's the fool they seek
We all go off the track and feel for our way back
Everybody breaks a glass
Everybody breaks a glass
Somewhere perfection lies, but not for you and I
Everybody trips sometimes
When cities fall like shacks,
Walls eventually crack
Everybody breaks a glass
To me, each line seems to relate to the line before it, but only halfway — ingraining each verse with this brilliant non-sequitur, stream-of-consciousness ambiguity, which gives me enough of a gesture towards the questions being explored, without providing a concrete answer.
“Everybody Breaks A Glass” really underscores why I became a fan of Lights in the first place. I’ve been a hip hop head my whole life so lyrics are highly important to me, and Lights’ music delivers that in spades. I think coming across her music early in my life ingrained a strong feeling inside me that well-thought-out, insightful lyrics are ALWAYS welcome, no matter the song, no matter the genre. Even within a straightforward, danceable pop song, there is still space for, and value in, quality writing.
I really like the line “However much you got on your plate, you’re as good as you reciprocate”. I think sometimes for really introverted people, it’s easy for us to feel so caught up in our own machinations that we forget how we might come across to others, who don’t have all the context on our motivations and decisions — you really are only as good as what you output, regardless of intention or effort.
I would also say that “We all pretend to keep our tongue out of our cheek — everyone’s the fool they seek” might be my favorite Lights lyric. It’s so poignant, so pointed, and it has always stuck in my memory. It speaks very cogently to ideas like shadow projection or the desire to judge others — sometimes what we react to so strongly when we see it in others is actually something we ourselves embody, consciously or unconsciously.
As a whole, I feel like “Everybody Breaks A Glass” might be Lights’ most heady song, and it’s packed to the brim with lines to ponder over — which again, how many pop songs could you say that about? And yet, it’s as catchy as any of them, the production as sharp and energetic, and yet still experimental. Sometimes I think of this song as the best distillation of the whole album — all of the album’s strengths and distinguishing traits are at their most visible on this song. Other times, I think of this song as the best distillation of Lights’ music as a whole — her strength as a writer on full display, yet broadcasting at the same time her penchant for innovative production choices, and still packing it all together to form something engaging and captivating.
True Isolation
“Heavy Rope” is the next song, and personally, I feel it’s one of the most underrated tracks on here. I’ve seen a lot of documentaries on Antarctic exploration, cave diving, or mountain scaling expeditions, and one of the most horrifying fears they’ve instilled in me is that singular moment where you realize you might have gambled your way to your death, and the only hope remaining is the incredibly minuscule chance that someone happens to notice and save you. “Heavy Rope” is the best I’ve seen a work of art capture this scenario.
Don't let me tumble away
Into the throes of the shadowy bay
I cling to the rock, and it's crumbling off
Toss me a heavy rope, it's a slippery slope
Come bail me out of this godforsaken precipice
Come bail me out of this godforsaken precipice
The scenery in my mind for this song is basically realizing that we might have gotten in over our heads with the expedition — we are now hanging from a frozen cliff, moments from death, awaiting rescue. Continuing the idea that each song lends a different aspect of winter, this one really drives home the feeling of isolation one would feel if they were completely alone and stranded in a harsh winter landscape. The antagonistic nature of winter at its worst is channeled in intimate detail here.
There’s a bit of a callback to the intro track I notice here: where in “Siberia”, the premise was “let’s leave our comfort and brave the wilderness and danger, we will survive as long as we are together”, “Heavy Rope” now has her separated from that person, in danger, pleading for them to come and return them to safety: “take me back to my element, I’m afraid”. Again, while I’m not 100% sure if Lights herself has confirmed this kind of overarching winter expedition concept, I nonetheless feel there is such a strong and cohesive narrative, sound, and progression to the album that I can’t shake this feeling of there being a central unifying theme. I’ve always wanted to travel to Antarctica sometime before I die, to experience the isolation, the extreme, the cold, and how untouched by humanity that landscape is — I think Siberia is the closest I’ve heard a work of art capture what I imagine Antarctica to feel like.
“Heavy Rope” is one of the most atmospheric songs on the project, the kind of song that you might not listen to just casually on a playlist but completely glues together the experience of a full-album listen. Also — THOSE BACKGROUND VOCALS! They are absolutely beautiful! Something about the way they’re delivered interacting within the mix just gives it this distant, echoing, siren-like beauty to the atmosphere that I love.
As a whole, I feel the composition on “Heavy Rope” comes across deceivingly sparse on first listen, but when you really pay attention, the sheer amount of layering in the background vocals, synths, and variations in the drums is kind of astounding. When I first heard this album, I was a broke high school student so I didn’t have quality headphones, but listening on high-end studio monitor headphones now as an adult, the compositional depth to this song just shows me how much love was put into each moment on this album.
This is one of those songs that, if I were to be a professor teaching a class to up-and-coming pop artists, I’d make them listen to this song five times and close-read it. Pop music, in my experience, can often find itself challenged by “album tracks”. For a genre that usually is focused on radio singles that can stand on their own two feet and command active attention, it can be difficult to then deliver an album that, like a great film, has pacing and variety. Each song is either a catchy single, or a ballad, but many struggle at those Jrue Holiday-like glue tracks, that pull the entire album together and put a bow on it.
But “Heavy Rope”? This is the definition of an S-Tier album track. It fleshes out the conceptual and sonic themes of the album so perfectly, without sacrificing ANYTHING. As a song that is not as hook-driven, it nonetheless manages to captivate your attention for the entire runtime. Personally, I think Lights is amazing at those catchy singles, but where she really shines is in doing these things artistically that other artists seem to falter in. “Heavy Rope” needs to be studied, analyzed, appreciated, and praised.
Warmth and Respite
With “Banner” taking us to the apocalypse wasteland, “Everybody Breaks A Glass” getting us deep in our heads, and “Heavy Rope” pulling at the very essence of survival, it’s almost a respite that the next song, “Timing Is Everything”, is more of a straight-forward, catchy pop song. The thing I’d note here on “Timing Is Everything” is that it actually shows another reason why I was drawn to Lights’ music early on — she’s a gamer! While the WoW or Oblivion references on previous songs (like “Lions”! And Banner?) might be better examples, I kinda like the cheeky Mario reference in this track (“your princess is in another castle”).
The next song, “Peace Sign”, is actually a great segue to another cool thing that people not familiar with Lights’ music should know: she’s a synth-pop artist, yeah, but after each album, she releases a follow-up which is the same album, but acoustic. And these acoustic albums are NO phone-in — they completely transform and even elevate the songs, presenting them in an entirely new light, letting the lyrics and songwriting shine further. “Peace Sign” is one where I’d say you should DEFINITELY check out the acoustic version, it’s insanely good, adding a new sense of emotion and vulnerability, and even a French verse/duet from Coeur de Pirate.
As for the original version found on this album, I do think this song is where we can hear the sound of The Listening seeping through the most. I don’t quite think this song would fit seamlessly on that album, but the main synth lead melody definitely takes me back to the one on “Quiet”. Lyrically, I want to note — with this song, that’s TWO of my favorite artists who’ve written entire songs themed around hands, hand signs, and how they can express love, hatred, and everything in between. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s wild that it’s happened twice now haha.
“Cactus In The Valley” is another heavyweight on this album when it comes to writing. It’s probably the most subdued track so far, and it really tugs at my heartstrings the way she sings the hook —
Wipe the mark of madness from my face
Show me that your love will never change
If my yesterday is a disgrace,
Tell me that you still recall my name
Gets me every time :’)
I also think the way this song is predominantly focused on her vocals and writing, lacking any flashy production flair, synth riffing, or heavy compression, allows it to stand as this warm, analog contrast amidst the frozen, electronic sound of the rest of the project. Almost like even in the dead center of a winter storm, we find a moment of respite to tap into what keeps us human — our feelings of love and connection to other people. I think this might have been the first Lights song I ever heard, and it’s no surprise I was hooked from there.
The Sound Of The Future
The next three songs, man, they’re just cool as hell. I’ve never heard stuff that sounds like this before. I think until this point the album has stuck with its theme faithfully and fleshed that idea out, but this portion of the album is where Lights really takes the opportunity to see just how far she can push the sound of this project, how creative and virtuosic she can get before wrapping it up. Almost like a metaphorical guitar solo to punctuate and elaborate on the sonic palette of this project.
“Suspension” is the most futuristic-sounding pop music my ears have ever experienced, and I love the way the different vocals layer over each other. The robotic flatness of her vocals on the hook just fits so perfectly with the electronica of the instrumentation. This song is an engineering marvel to me, I’ve taken so many notes for when I’m mixing my own music. It feels like this pot that she just keeps adding more and more sonic elements to as the song develops, until they’re all swirling together as this perfect stew of a hundred ingredients, only to be flushed all at once at the end. So much going on, and yet the mix never feels crowded or muddled — HOW?? The song title is really fitting to me, it feels like a plethora of reagents all suspended together within the same solution, a wildly reactive mixture but all still in harmony.
The chaos of the production is complemented quite well by the way the lyrics seem to defy any logical conceptions of time and space, describing a moment that is somehow measured in distance, a soul hanging by a thread suspended in air, or describing a feeling as “sky” or lacking gravity. It really feels this is a song where she let loose conceptually and fully dives into the abstruse.
Somewhere we go to kill a while
A moment continuing for miles
Stars wed overhead, you’re everywhere
Don't need anything as much
Soul shed on a thread, stranded in air
When you get too far to touch
...
Lift my spirit high when you come here
Enemy under the heel
The sky feeling I get when you’re near
I’d give up gravity to feel
The grinding, start-and-stop nature of the melodies on “Flux and Flow” also feel so new to pop music. I especially love how there seems to be this audio glitch when she sings “there are *PITS and lands” during the hook, and keeping it there in the final mix makes it sound like an intentional effect. I think it adds perfectly to the sonic texture of the album, with its overt embrace of glitchiness and distortion.
This is another song that is transformed and transmuted so superlatively on the acoustic version; the way she was able to take a song that was seemingly so defined by the interplay of electronic elements like synths and pads, and reconstruct it into a string-laden organic hymn is nothing short of masterful. I would liken it to a metallurgist taking a beautiful gold necklace, melting it down to its raw, uniform components, and then reforming it into an entirely new piece, different in form, in structure, and in aesthetic, yet made from the same base material.
“Fourth Dimension” is amazing live, there’s this one performance she did of it somewhere on Youtube that I’ve seen so, so many times, that unfortunately now seems to be lost in the annals of the internet. It was for AltarTV, and I’m able to find a lower resolution version of it now, but the original upload had an interview at the beginning, better camera angles, and better sound quality. (I wish I could find it again! Please hit me up if it resurfaces!!)
In a word, this song is just so stylish. The production is gleaming and futuristic, and the lyrics to me are another perfect example of the abstract/fantastical writing style I love so much on this project.
I could take steps in this moon and that cloud
Look at my breath and still feel the warm out
This isn't about seasons, or about rhyme and reason
Trying to be smart but my 0's and my ones
Only show starts in my toes and thumbs
Nothing adds up but agrees
You becomes us and makes three
WHAT DOES IT MEAN?? I have a decades worth of guesses, and yet, I don’t even care which of them is right! This song reminds me of why I love Aesop Rock’s lyrics too; they both give you so much to play around with in your head, holding each line up to the light and looking at it from different angles, trying to figure out what is being said and how it all fits together. Nothing adds up but agrees.
The bridge on this song lends more of the abstract scenery that’s so fun to imagine and immerse yourself in.
I'm on moons and clouds
Where worlds wrap around
I'm on moons and clouds
Where worlds wrap around
The way that bridge vocal then continuously loops in the background for the rest of the song is just compositional perfection. The hook was always a gem to me too:
Cheers, to such, an old invention
Dear, we’ve touched, the fourth dimension
I’ll eventually find better words for this years from now, but for now, isn’t that just so cool? I also love how this song doesn’t mix out the audible gasps between her vocals, and instead actively takes those gasps and turns them into a percussive element that plays throughout the outro. Took me really long to notice that, but when I did, it just made me love this song even more. For long-time Lights fans, if anything, I hope this review really pushes this song to the front of your attention, I don’t see y’all talking about “Fourth Dimension” anywhere near enough!
Together, these three songs just sound like what I’d imagine “pop from the future” to sound like, and I haven’t seen anything AFTER it that really hits the same. As I mentioned before, I think this album ends with the experimentation at the forefront. Where “Suspension” shows us just how crazy she can get with the sound, I think “Fourth Dimension” shows us just how far she can push this abstract writing style. And I think the final two songs show us how she can experiment with song structure.
The Deep End
The album is almost done, but these last two tracks are special. For anyone somehow still thinking this could be anything close to a straight-forward, run-of-the-mill pop album, these tracks render that conclusion impossible. “And Counting” slows the pace down to a crawl — it doesn’t really even have a rhythm section at all? It’s just slow, meditative vocals sung over melancholic synth pads. There’s this faint rolling army-march drum pattern that starts playing halfway through, I guess, but even that feels off-kilter and not intended to carry the pace of the song. This is a 5 minute song with no drums or bounce, on a pop album! How?!
The lyrics of the song almost read to me like a “captain’s log” type of thing, recording a traveler’s thoughts each night during an expedition:
Forty days, and counting
I'm going to sleep,
When I wake up,
There will be
Thirty nine
More days left
...
Thirty days, and counting
I'm going to sleep
When I wake up
There will be
Twenty nine
More days left
The song teeters out on some really sweet fading vocals, almost lulling us to sleep after this adventure of an album — but it’s got a parting gift for us.
The finale, “Day One”, is even more experimental, and even longer. It’s an 8 minute instrumental soundscape, with various synths, melodies and pads and motifs, just floating in and out. On a full album listen, this track is irreplaceable. The rest of the project took us on such wild turns sonically and thematically, this one feels like a closer that leaves us with our thoughts for a while. In the context of the winter journey of the album, this final track feels like we are sitting alone in the snow, looking at the aurora borealis dancing and fluttering above us, as these synths arpeggiate, glitch, and flutter around the stereo-scape of the song.
Some time and space to reflect.
What a finale.
And what kind of normal, sane, POP album ends with an 8 minute experimental ambient song??
I don’t think I know any other pop album that is as much an experience as this album. It feels like a concept album without directly being proposed as one. It’s a pop album without allowing itself to be limited by mass appeal. It feels like it has energetic crescendos, moments of respite, contemplation, exuberance, fear, confidence, vulnerability, beauty, and edge. It truly takes you on a ride, from place to place, feeling to feeling, mood to mood, time to time.
This is an album that, like Cilvia Demo by Isaiah Rashad, came to me unassumingly, without hype and without friends pushing it onto me, and yet, year after year, I kept listening to it. It grew more and more meaningful to me, to the point that now, when I put it on, it swells emotions and feelings within me, without fail, every time. I’ve been listening to it for over a decade now, and it hasn’t lost a single bit of its luster. It’s only gotten better and better for me. I discover new sounds and feelings every time I put it on, spurred onward to new realizations and imagery. It’s an album I’ve grown with, as has my appreciation for it, and I feel it’s grown with me too, like a fine wine maturing with age. This album is just perfect to me.
I remember being a high schooler scouring the entire internet looking for second-hand copies of this album on vinyl, and having no luck. At the time, vinyl hadn’t quite yet become this vintage collector hobby that has proliferated today, so it wasn’t surprising to have difficulty finding a copy. Then it got reprinted years later — I ended finally up owning her entire discography in physical form, from the albums down to each EP she’s put out.
Over the past decade, I would try to go back and find other reviews of this album, and it felt like there weren’t many. None of the critics I follow covered this album. And of those scant reviews that I did find tucked away on the internet, none of them felt like they appropriately captured the essence and exigence of this album, or properly appreciated it the way I appreciate it. For as many words and sounds went into this album, I wasn’t satisfied with how many words were said about it. More people should’ve been writing about it, making videos about it, discussing it on message boards. Siberia was and is an artistic triumph to me, and it warrants the utmost admiration. So when I decided to take up reviewing albums myself, the endgame was always to review Siberia, and my goal was to finally give it the due praise that I think it always deserved, and to champion the brilliance put forth on this project. I even waited to develop my writing skills to a level before writing this review, spending a year practicing by writing about other albums, so that I could feel confident that I am doing a service in representing this album.
Siberia pulls off that oh-so-difficult task of crafting a cohesive sonic aesthetic that ties the whole album together, yet somehow eschewing repetition and surprising the listener with every move. A whole album that evokes winter, with each song as varied as each day in the season. Sometimes harsh and antagonistic. Sometimes dangerous, desolate. Sometimes magical. In my opinion, this is the greatest pop album I’ve ever heard, and it is one of two albums I’d call my favorite of all time.
Lights is an immensely talented artist, and she has the trait that I personally find the most appealing in an artist: the ability to transform her sound entirely with each album. Unfortunately, this does mean she never really went back to this sound. I doubt we’ll ever get a Siberia 2 or something like that. But honestly, that’s not a bad thing. I love seeing the constant evolution in her sound, and how versatile she is as a writer and artist to be able to sink so well into each of those sounds. Every album from her has been different, and yet still drawing from that same place of talent, emotion, and honesty. I will be writing about each album in her discography, but I wanted to make sure to start with Siberia due to how much it means to me personally. I hope everyone reading this will take the time to check out those reviews when I eventually publish them. Lights’ entire discography is full of brilliant twists and turns that I think need to be explored in writing and properly appreciated among not only the pantheon of pop music, but more broadly in our discourses of what it means to be a versatile, adventurous, and authentic artist.
Siberia. 10/10. Masterpiece.