BIO
Lui Salazar (or just "Lui") is a recording artist, multi-instrumentalist, and visual artist based near Chicago. He has been featured on stations such as Sunny G Radio, Lumpen Radio, The Warp Factor, and ACRE TV. He has also received support from Jammerzine, ComeHereFloyd, Surviving the Golden Age, Tonic Grain, Rock Era Magazine, Reignland Magazine, Independent Music Reviews, Last Day Deaf, and more.
His music typically combines elements from 90s alternative rock and punk, 60s pop and psychedelic rock, 70s glam rock, and 2000s indie pop and neo-psychedelia. Listeners often recognize an eclectic combination of psych rock and prog rock in Lui's music.
Diagnosed with bipolar disorder, depression, and anxiety at a young age, Lui tends to overthink every aspect of his life. He imagines fantastical situations, alternate realities loosely based on his own experiences.
Lui’s parents consider music an important educational tool. When Lui was 4, his parents signed him up for violin lessons. However, he became passionate about 90s and 2000s rock bands after borrowing his eldest sister’s MP3 player. A few weeks later, he picked up his first acoustic guitar. He started guitar lessons and began learning Beatles songs by ear. Lui's love for The Beatles and all things psychedelic rock and power-pop never diminished, but instead contributed to his style. He does everything, from song conception and production to mixing and mastering, at his home studio in Grayslake, Illinois.
FEATURED
CURRENT WORK
PAST WORK
TRUTH IS LIKE A SEED
March 5, 2021
Lui's influences include several Elephant 6 bands (Neutral Milk Hotel, The Olivia Tremor Control, The Apples in Stereo, and Major Organ and the Adding Machine, to name a few), as well as Mike Krol, Matt Mahaffey (of sElf), Queen, Jellyfish, The Beatles, Bowie, and many others.
Lui started the album last year during his final semester of college. At the time, he was a nervous wreck who constantly worried about the world around him and how he would navigate it upon graduating. He felt small, and many of the songs reflect that. He examines big entities like religion, corporations, social media, and the internet. According to Lui, there is good that comes from these entities, but they can also make people feel powerless over their place in this world. Lui's songs are serious in terms of lyrics and composition, but he adds strong elements of cynicism, sarcasm, humor, and tasteful bombast.
There are three noise tracks on the album: “Percolate”, “Not Death et al.”, and “Message Not Received?”
“Percolate” is a chaotic mix of found and original samples. The track represents the state of being overwhelmed, as if being “brewed” in a whirl of noise.
“Not Death et al.” imitates the everyday suspense - anxiety. Death will come to us one day, but for now we experience “Not Death and others.” That should keep us busy enough.
“Message Not Received?” is a horror/sci-fi track with elements of dark comedy. An alien has taken the listener hostage in an extraterrestrial cave. Before his capture, the listener thought he could work with the alien. The listener once believed in his own control over the situation but must now face the consequences.
