Seattle-based producer Jeff McIlwain, aka Lusine, returns with his ninth album, Long Light, celebrating his 20th anniversary with Ghostly International. A major influence on countless electronic artists, including London's Loraine James, Lusine is known for visceral, kinetically inquisitive music that blends techno, pop, and experimental compositions. In recent years, McIlwain has elevated his craft with more collaborative, song-oriented work. Long Light showcases this consistent approach; his signature looping patterns and textures are dynamic yet minimalist, as ever. Structurally straightforward, taut, and bright, the material shines as the most direct in his catalog, featuring vocals from Asy Saavedra, Sarah Jaffe, and Sensorimotor colleagues Vilja Larjosto and Benoît Pioulard. Lusine found his sound early on, but he never stopped refining his potential, patiently deconstructing the distractions and solving the puzzles. With "Long Light," a process-driven artist achieves an exceptionally pleasing level of clarity and immediacy. McIlwain sees the title, taken from the lyrical phrase "long light signaling the fall again," written by Benoît Pioulard for the later title track, as a guiding thread reflecting multiple meanings. "There's this kind of paranoia where you don't know what's real; it's an age of great anxiety, and there are all these distractions," McIlwain explains. "It's like a hall of mirrors." Following the long light is the only true path, and he applies this metaphor to the album's recordings, which also have a cyclical character, much like the seasons. Like the beginning of autumn, the album concludes a period of cultivation; “Making music is a struggle, and you have to have a lot of patience.” “Long Light” is proof that what lies beyond the noise, at the end of the figurative tunnel, is worth all the work put in along the way. Throughout the collection, McIlwain identifies the central sonic element, a vocal snippet or a simple beat sequence, upon which everything else is built. On the opener “Come And Go,” he multiplies a vocal contribution from his longtime collaborator Vilja Larjosto into a heavenly choir reminiscent of the Sensorimotor hit “Just A Cloud.” It’s the bass hook on the single “Zero to Sixty” that winds around the voice of Sarah Jaffe, whose smooth vocal range and cool delivery are the source of Lusine’s distinctive mapping.