In the azure luminance with Zora Lucent; photographed by Noé Pierre.

Much has been been written about the transportive and transcendent powers of the audio arts in academic and media journals alike. No matter how much we attempt to reduce in descriptions about the experiential immersion in sensory and thought provoking arts there is something that defies cartographically mapping or charting out the places they take us. Concerts, gallery showings, installations, literature, performances, productions, albums and so forth possess an indelible transformative power to invite us to new places in spirit, mind, the senses and all the things that cannot be encapsulated in the expressive scope of simple adjectives.

Exploring the aforementioned and beyond is Zora Lucent with the visionary record Verilux. Bridging maudlin strings with brooding synths, New Orleans based artist Nora Jane Messerich delivers a succinct pop symphony in seven moments that swims the depths of oceanic underworlds as well as the outer dimensions of consciousness. Verilux brings the orange candle lit flicker of a clandestine cellar dive with the bombast found in an opera stage hall.

The opening title track sets the timbre and tone for the bewildering realms of Verilux. Abstract beats, electro glitches along chopped/screwed/slowed vocal stems send Nora's voice into the helixes of trickling river creek calm chords and paranormal textures of vocal cuts and keys. "Severance // Feedback Loop" walks along the pastoral fields of intimate expressions and overgrown green trails of reflective thought, sending the classical sway of song into the entrancing temple arena of the beguiling "Enigmata".

"Still Feel" rocks and sways like coming down in a descent from the celestial skies of the heavens above like a feather slowly making way down to the bedrock cradle of earth. Pure bliss can be found on "Envelop, Unfurl" that imagines the shifts from spring to summer as witnessed in the daybreak exchange where night hands over duties to the new day's bright beams of sun. Meditation rituals met by rising tension make up the cinematic energy of "Distance Between" that marks the apex of the Verilux narrative. Nora brings it all back home on the closing "Fused, Connected, Affected" that discovers a harmony between the creative elements at work in the Zora Lucent universe. Verilux transports the audience to a concerto that melts down the mold of the modern classical into the molten liquid orr of psychic subterranean experimentation.

Exploring the intersection between choral acoustics and the electronic with Zora Lucent; photographed by Noé Pierre.

Nora Jane Messerich, aka Zora Lucent, provided some exclusive and expansive meditative insights on Verilux and more from the creative zeitgeist:

The Vision

W A T E R...Bodies of Water. Caves of Ice. Subconscious Depths and Multidimensional Expanse. Spirality... Arranged Sound as P O R T A L. Nonlinear Time. Deep Time. Timelessness. Stillness. a Clearing, a Clearing. a Reprieve. Deepening of Self Understanding. Embodied Knowing. “Truth Glowing with Light." Viscerality. Vvisssscerality. H Y P N O S I S into Other Realms. Loss, Loss, Longing. “Fervence of my Longing.” Gentle Textures as a Holding. Floating. Floating. Hypnotic Flow for Healing. "I Taste the Wholeness that Once Was."

Meditations by Zora Lucent; photographed by Noé Pierre.

Mystical and Earthly Worlds. Interwoven. Frequency as Energy. Music as Energy Work. Vulnerability as Practice. Voice as Vulnerable. Voice as E V O C A T I V E. Direct Expression of Self. Direct Expression of Truth. Painting with Sound. Devotion. Devotional Mystery. Touching the Mystery. I Devote Myself to the Mystery. I Devote Myself to Creativity. I Devote Myself to…

Zora Lucent’s Verilux will be available June 16.

PREMIERE | Zora Lucent, 'Verilux'

The Vision