Rush’s Alex Lifeson Releases New Song, Offers Envy of None Update
Rush’s Alex Lifeson has released a new instrumental song, “Cherry Lopez Lullaby,” and updated fans about the progress of his upcoming album with Envy of None.
The three-minute track features Lifeson blending textured electric guitar drones and scrappy acoustic plucking, laid out over a laid-back drum groove. Wordless vocals occasionally drift through the trippy swirl.
Lifeson announced the song through a newsletter with pre-order information for his upcoming LERXST Bluetooth speaker. He also detailed the song in a humorous note, saying the piece was written in L.A. during the mixing of Rush’s 2012 LP, Clockwork Angels.
“I did an interview with High Times and the interviewer brought along a friend, an esteemed grower who provided a sample of his creation named Cherry Lopez,” he wrote. "Because I was on an EST body clock, I was up most mornings @ 5:00 AM. I'd order coffee, sit on my hotel room balcony, read the paper and wake and bake then dive into making some fun sounds while the city was waking up. I had some borrowed acoustic and electric guitars for the duration, thankfully, as sitting around waiting to go to the studio was tedious and certainly, a bowl of Cherry kept my appetite healthy.”
You can hear the song below.
In a similarly amusing video about his newsletter, Lifeson noted that the recently teased Envy of None project — featuring bassist Andy Curran and vocalist Maiah Wynne, among others — is "coming along."
“It sounds so amazing,” he said in the clip, positioned awkwardly next to a computer. “And we’re mixing it, and it’s gonna be good. It’s gonna be good music.”
Curran spoke to UCR about Envy of None in June, saying Lifeson had completed 10 songs for the album at that time. The bassist cautioned that the music is very different from Rush, describing “trippy and dark” material with “pop elements” thrown in.
“I think there’s a lot of Alex Lifeson in these,” he said. “There’s some beautiful guitar that he’s played all over it. … It’s like, if you can picture maybe Massive Attack with a little bit of some electronic stuff with Nine Inch Nails influences, with this beautiful, fragile, sweet voice and some very, very dark heavy sounds. That’s kind of what this project sounds like.”