LUX INTERNA comment: “New Wilderness Gospel is a provocation, an invocation, and an invitation”, singer, guitarist and banjo player Joshua Levi Ian writes. “By ‘gospel’, we mean not only a sacred narrative or liturgy. We are also drawn to the early English (mis)interpretation of godspel as spell – a word that names both myth and magical incantation. And ‘wilderness’, for us, doesn’t simply refer to an untamed landscape. It is a symbolic and psychic terrain – a space of danger, reckoning, and transformation. A place where old maps fail, but where other voices might begin to guide you. New Wilderness Gospel is an attempt to listen – to hear the messages encoded in the land, the body, and the self when all are pushed beyond their previous limits. It’s a search for a different kind of ‘good news’ – one that arises not from hierarchy or control, but from the margins, from the cracks, from what has been cast out.”
LUX INTERNA have created a guided ritual through “New Wilderness Gospel“. This eBook can be accessed through the band’s website at this link: https://newwildernessgospel.com/ritual
“As you listen to ‘New Wilderness Gospel’ – on vinyl, CD, or streaming – this book serves as a ritual companion for each track”, singer and autoharp player Kathryn Ian explains. “Each song is paired with an image, a meditational phrase, and a simple set of sensory actions. Move through them slowly and with intention. Let music, text, and image converge in a shared act of imagination.”
“New Wilderness Gospel” is now available for immediate publication at this link: https://youtu.be/qXUT6Gty0P4
Tracklist
1. Dark Fire/Revelator
2. Over the Timberlines
3. Brittle
4. Like Wolves
5. Into Night
6. No Arrow
7. Old Blood Blues
8. Her Wilderness
9. Selva Oscura
After a decade of silence, LUX INTERNA return with their fifth album “New Wilderness Gospel”. More than just a collection of songs, the album is the centerpiece of a larger, immersive world woven from sound, text, and image.
A fever-dream of haunted Americana, apocalyptic mysticism, and cinematic folk noir, “New Wilderness Gospel” unfolds like a sonic myth – a dark hymn for the Anthropocene, a transmission from the wilderness at the edge of the known world.
With “New Wilderness Gospel”, LUX INTERNA evoke a fragmented narrative set against the desolate highways, shadowy Appalachian Mountains, and bone bleached deserts of an America at once raw and mythic. The songs hum with the crackle of unseen voices and the weight of the past bleeding into the present. Prophetic whispers travel through power lines; the silence of the desert swarms with spirits; the deep forest night yields to the presence of an even older darkness.
Musically, “New Wilderness Gospel” presents a spectral tapestry – woven from the deep twang of desert blues, the ghostly echoes of Appalachian folk and gospel, the eerie shimmer of psychedelia and post-punk, and the raw intensity of American Gothic balladry. Beneath it all, warped traces of 1960s girl pop and 1980s new wave flicker like distant radio signals, barely breaking through the static. It is a sound both timeworn and time-lost – haunted by memory, but restless, always reaching forward.
Written during a restless period of road trips in a time of unrelenting storms, wildfires, and a landscape in flux, “New Wilderness Gospel” channels the uncanny blending of inner and outer worlds that occurs in both moments of crisis and contemplation. Guiding listeners on a journey through liminal spaces a ghost-lit passage through the dark night of the soul – it unveils a secret conspiracy between shelter and storm.
LUX INTERNA were conceived by Joshua Levi Ian and Kathryn Ian with a clear artistic vision in New York in 2000. Drawing inspiration from his intensive research in comparative mysticism and esoteric writings, Joshua’s lyrics emerge from a deeply personal reservoir of symbols, visions, and obsessions.
Besides the founding duo, Kathryn and Joshua, LUX INTERNA have been shaped by a shifting constellation of musical talents over the years. Each member has left their creative mark on the continuously evolving sound. Special mention should be made of AMBER ASYLUM frontwoman, Kris T. Force, who has been a core member since joining in 2009 and has contributed significantly to the project’s dark, immersive sonic textures.
In the wake of their debut EP “Truth, Beauty, and All Their Severity” (2000), LUX INTERNA have released four studio albums, beginning with “Absence and Plenum” (2002), which was followed by “Ignis Mutat Res” (2004), “God Is Not Dead for the Birds” (2007), and the latest full-length “There Is Light in the Body, There Is Blood in the Sun” in 2013.
In various manifestations, LUX INTERNA have performed extensively across the United States and Europe. The Americans also appeared multiple times at renowned festivals such as the Wave Gotik Treffen in Leipzig, Germany and Stella Natura (Sierra Nevadas, CA) among many others. LUX INTERNA have also had the honour of performing at esteemed art galleries and cultural spaces, including the Coulter Gallery at the McMurtry Building at Stanford University and the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art.
At its core, the Gesamtkunstwerk “New Wilderness Gospel” asks: What happens when the song of the world begins to slip into static? When the maps fail, and the familiar trails vanish? What emerges in the wilderness beyond the horizons of empire?
Shop
http://lnk.spkr.media/luxinterna-gospel
Available formats
“New Wilderness Gospel” is available as 2CD 72-page artbook, as Gatefold black vinyl 2LP, and as Gatefold marble blue vinyl 2LP.
Links
https://newwildernesssociety.org
https://www.facebook.com/luxinternamusic
https://www.instagram.com/lux_interna_official/
https://luxinterna.bandcamp.com
Booking contact
newwildernesssociety@gmail.com
