Every Life Is A Light: A Review

Joni Void’s latest release drops with a wonderful genre blend of lo-fi, avant-pop, downtempo, and ambient, incorporating his home base of Montreal as a recurring character. It offers a warm and peaceful transitional journey throughout its concise 44-minute runtime. Every Light Is A Life is an experimental collage of sounds that invites its listeners to get lost in its extended loops and slow bpm. 

The opening track, “Everyday- A Sequel”,  provides a beautiful, ambient, thematic introduction for the rest of the album. Its slowed-down vocal loop and whirring background sounds carry its listeners along with them, providing a trance-inducing experience, whisking listeners away with the sound of a train heading forward to its destination. He continues this transient theme on “Du Parc,” which loops the iconic sounds of the STM supported by a melodic bassline and ethereal vocals, keeping us in a transitory experience. 

“Time Zone” and “Cloud Level” provide some wonderful moments that sound like they could have been pulled from a late-90s Mob Deep cut. Its backing vocals from Japanese artists Haco and Ytamo, respectively, offer an angelic quality to help levitate the listener. These standout tracks provide an intoxicating, head-bopping groove that cannot help to be felt throughout the body.

Songs like “Muffin - A Song For My Cat” and “Event Flow - A Sequence” are the most lo-fi and minimalist offerings in the track list. Similar to what one may hear during a long study session with the infamous lo-fi girl. The former song is led by a beautiful piano loop, eventually complemented by a slow and reverberating bass loop and the subject of the title sprinkled throughout: his cat. The latter of the two tracks, once again, samples the identifiable STM sound to a very languid bass. While very pretty, this song seems misplaced sitting between songs like “Between Places” with its frenetic ending and the trip-hop inspired “Story Board.” 

“Story Board” is another standout song that wears its trip-hop/alternative hip-hop reminiscent of Busdriver and R.A.P. Ferreira’s (formerly Milo) early work. Rapper Pink Navel drops some wonderfully introspective verses of reflection with crafty wordplay. Following this is another, “Vertigo,” which provides a funky bassline groove and sinewy vocals, and once again, feels like it could come from a Moby B-side. 

The album ends with “Death Is Not The End” and “ Joni Sadler Forever.” The first of the two tracks is a collage of interesting sounds and textures to create a very floaty and hypnotic experience. The final track, “Joni Sadler Forever,” feels like an uplifting and positive endnote to the album. Utilizing an extended synth loop and some energetic drums, the listener is left feeling as if the journey is not over, but rather just beginning.

Overall, Every Life Is a Light is a beautiful exploration of sound, delving into themes of transition: an ending is but a new beginning. It boasts wonderfully hypnotic and entrancing soundscapes. Although some of the songs may be too experimental for some or too lo-fi for others, I encourage everyone to give this a listen, if only to experience the capabilities of what can be achieved through experimentation of sound.