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Illuminated: Boston’s The Lights Out tease their experimental T.R.I.P. through the multiverse


“There are some on the fringes of science and philosophy who suspect we are living not in a universe, but a multiverse where every possible choice to be made plays out across infinitely dimensioned space-time,” says Rishava Green, guitarist/vocalist of the Lights Out. “We are here to report back that it’s really true!”

It’s been a hot minute since the veteran rock band, known for both their tight-knit live show and a years-long series of band-morphing Halloween performances, have released new material or even performed on stage around town. But Friday, May 22, finds not only the return of the Lights Out, at T.T. The Bear’s Place in Cambridge, but the reborn band as an entirely new entity and stage show spectacle.

The lights have been out, now they are on.

“We’re going to sing you a few songs about, among other things, coming unmoored from linear causality,” says Green. “ALL that you can do, or be, is literally true somewhere. Literally. And when you imagine, you are actually tapping into your quantum offshoots, each just as real as the you reading this post right now.”

The Lights Out will be playing all new music, set to be recorded later this year at Mad Oak in Allston, that will soon become their latest creation, a concept album called The Reckoning in Pandimensionality — or T.R.I.P. — which we’re told will explore the idea of multiple realities.

But how did we get here? Green breaks it down in an extensive post:

Something was not right with The Lights Out two years ago. We were as tight as ever, made the slickest, tightest, punchiest record imaginable and elevated our live show to tour-level execution for South By Southwest. We were ripe and rotting. I could feel it in my own conviction onstage, wondering how to believe hard enough to put it over. I could feel it in my conviction to put pen to paper. Were we excited enough to still endure walking four hundred pounds of gear down a flight of stairs at six at night, into Tim the van, onto the stage at some club, back into the van, and back up the stairs at three thirty in the morning? Were we getting anything across to anyone at all? And so forth. Every band has its time. Maybe ours had come to an end.

Except, we never really got to that point. Somewhere in the preparation for the band’s annual vacation to Burning Man, the true depth of Jesse’s tinkering compulsion began to reveal itself in the crazy light-up EL wire madness of our Border Patrol costumes, which even in that sea of lights, made everyone who saw us stop and say something nice. The visual edge is a lot, lot farther out there than black jeans and t-shirts, or even sequins and rhinestones. A more bedazzled and illuminated band began to take shape in my mind. Why not let the creative genius at this stuff just run wild? Jesse is the kind of guy who is easily bored, maybe this will hold his attention for awhile. Well, Jesse decided to take it on, to all of our eternal gratitude. But why look this way from now on? What’s the motivation?

For the answer to that, keep reading.

For a visual hint, watch the video below.


LightsOutFlyer