P&P Spotlight: Nico Son (EXCLUSIVE SINGLE PREMEIRE & INTERVIEW)

Though much of his previous work centers around traditional and classical influences, Chris Lippincott has recently started a brand new, drastically different musical chapter. Under the transcendent alter ego of Nico Son, his indie-alt work takes an edgier sonic approach, symbolically emphasizing the cycles and waves in life. "Let This Go," the pulsating follow-up to "One Love" and "Lost In The Shade," drops today. Stylistically departing from his two previous releases, "Let This Go" vividly captures the feelings of lust and tension when a relationship starts to grow more serious. Today, Playlists & Polaroids has the honor of participating in the exclusive premiere of "Let This Go." We recently got to chat with Chris, and we love the insight he gave us on the track and his personal journey!

Image credit: Chris Lippincott, graphic created by Karly Ramnani

YOU'LL LOVE NICO SON IF YOU LISTEN TO: Radiohead, Ruston Kelly, Taylor Swift, Noah Kahan, Clairo, boygenius

How did the project of Nico Sun come about? What inspired you to use an alter ego?

I have a lot of different types of music out. I have a bunch of instrumental music out under my own name. And just the style of producing feels outside of that world, outside of almost myself in a way. I wanted to separate the brands on streaming platforms and in the way I released music. Chris Lippincott [is] more composer-driven, ambient-driven instrumental music. And then Nico Sun sounds more like alternative indie rock, a little bit more lyric-driven. That's part of it, and then also, I kind of wanted to create a little bit of a mythological figure, a little bit more of something that isn't just me as a person. It's kind of this entity that's beyond me, if that makes sense, and that's Nico Son.

How did you come up with the name Nico Son?

Funny enough, the way the name came, I was watching The Royal Tenenbaums, and a Nico song came on. It was actually "These Days" by Jackson Browne, but there's a Nico version, and Nico was in this band called The Velvet Underground back in the day, and it was her and singing the song. And I don't know. I just love the name Nico, and I wrote it down. It's not really tied to that at all, but I just started putting words behind it. I don't even remember what I had in my journal, but then I put Nico Son together. I started brainstorming on what that could mean, and Nico actually means victory of the people. I started thinking about it, what it means in terms of how it ties to the music. I think of it as like, this music talks a lot about expanding your own growth, through consciousness and becoming more aware of how you think. And I would like to think that we're all trying to help each other do that through life and sharing art, and we're trying to expand the consciousness, That, in a way, feels like a victory for our community, as musicians and artists and just people, really. Where the "son" comes in is that I'm a practitioner of that belief, I guess you could say.

How do you feel as though these concepts tie into your songwriting process - either in general, or on a particular song?

Pretty much in general, but particularly in the first two that are actually out, "One Love" and "Lost in the Shade." I joke about my morning routine that I'll wake up on days when I'm really trying to write, and I try not to interact with the world at all until I'm finished. I'll just meditate and really try to go inward into what I'm feeling that day, access it deeply, and hold on to it throughout breakfast. Then I go upstairs to my studio and try to carry it into what it would feel like as a song. And that's how "One Love," got born, and "Lost in the Shade." Just really trying to listen to the mood of the day, and what is given that's kind of outside of me, and try to access it in myself and let it flow into whatever instrument I'm playing.

Who are some of your biggest inspirations as Nico Son, lyrically and otherwise?

I've been into Twain - [he does] folk music, but it's incredibly poetic and it almost feels like a prayer in a way, but not religious. It's just beautiful and it's so visceral. And he just has some lines where I'm like, "What the hell? That's so beautiful." Radiohead is, sound wise, my favorite. And then I'd say Sigur Ros - they made up their own language and they don't really have lyrics. I would say sonically, they're one of my favorites. And yeah, as far as lyric-driven modern music, I think Twain, and Big Thief is another one.

Nico's Son has a new song, "Let This Go" coming out today - how do you feel as though this one follows from your previous work?

"Lost in the Shade" and "One Love," the first two that are already out, I would say they're a little bit more in line with what I described Nico as earlier. They're a little bit more, I guess you could say, mythologically based. And they're a little bit more introspective. And "Let This Go" is more of a pop banger. My friend [Dustin Loman], who co-wrote it, helped me write "Let This Go" as a song at the turning point of a romantic union - will this connection reach the next level of depth, or will it dissolve? It's about the absurdity of finding love in the modern world of dating, and it's all the ebbs and flows around that. It's a playful jab at it, because just the nature of the song - it's like this big, heavy synth-rock song, and the lyrics are kind of comical, whereas the first two singles were more insular and introspective. ["Let This Go" is] more psychedelic with the synth sounds and the drums, but almost poppy, though. It's got a robotic element to it that the other two do not have.

Was there one specific experience with dating, or trying to date someone, that prompted you to write "Let This Go"?

I wrote this a while back - in March 2020, I had been seeing a girl three weeks before the lockdown and pandemic. And we kind of had a moment where we were seeing other people, and then lockdown happened and it was like, "Are we going to let this go, or are we going to keep seeing each other?" So lockdown forced us to say, "Are we going to get into a relationship or not?" And we did, and I was with her for about a year and a half. Things didn't work out, but she's a very sweet girl. We still keep in touch every once in a while. But all that to say, the lockdown prompted the title of that song. The lyrics spin it out.

So how long have you had this one in your back pocket for?

I wrote it in 2020, and I had it actually just sitting there, and I didn't know what to do with it. That one, and another track that's not out yet, called "Enemy Of Sin." It's a pretty ridiculous title, but I had those two sitting for about a year and a half and I was just working on other stuff, producing other people's work, and I was like, "I got to finish this." "Let This Go" was actually the first one written on the record.

How do you look at "Let This Go" now? What does it mean to you at this point in your life?

I don't know. I think what was hard about this song was getting it right on the production end of things, getting it to land and to hit - because it feels great now, but I couldn't get it. It's very different than the rest of the record. It's kind of like the pop single, where the rest of the record is more indie alt rock. This one's got a little bit more of a Tame Impala vibe to it. So it was hard to get it to live with the other tracks, if makes sense. And it was hard to get it to hit and make it feel like bouncy like it does, without being abrasive. I think it just feels playful singing this song in a good way. It's kind of got a comical element to it, it's not as serious as the other songs.

Image credit: Chris Lippincott

Would you say that this song has become more playful, and less heavy, for you over the past couple of years?

I think it was playful back then, too. The way this song actually came about was that I had a publishing company approach me to audition me. They said that to audition me, they had me write ten songs in seven days, fully produced. I would get up every morning and I would just play the first thing that came out, and that would be it. That was what I was writing. "Let This Go" was one of those, and it just felt hilarious. And then once I got drums on it fully flushed out the production, that felt great and so unique. Nobody's doing anything like this.

How has the environment of Nashville and its music scene influenced you, sonically and otherwise?

I've been in Nashville for about ten years, and it's just really pushed me to want to find my own voice. And what I love about it is there's so many people here that are operating on such a proficient level, that it makes you want to find that within yourself. Everybody's very open and cool about it, and there's lots of people to access information about on the production side of things here, and I love that. I do get concerned with Nashville losing its grit a little bit, with the influx of population in the past five or six years. I lived in New Orleans before this, and New Orleans was an incredibly diverse and creatively stimulating city to live in. And I think Nashville is very creatively stimulating as well - it's just moving very fast in growth, which can be scary sometimes. But, yeah, it's beautiful. I can go out about 40 miles east, and it's just gorgeous hills and waterfalls, and you can really get out in nature here. I love that about Nashville. And the music community is just so supportive.

Do you feel as though the natural landscapes have ever influenced your songwriting?

Oh, a hundred percent. I mean, that's such a big part of my daily or weekly routine - once my head feels jumbled or I feel out of sorts, I always go out to the woods and I go to Beeman Park, which is about 20 minutes north. It's just gorgeous hills to hike and [you can] lose yourself in for a few hours, and not have to think, and then come back to the studio to finish a song, or finish a mix or something like that.

Switching gears a little bit, I also heard that you're playing guitar for Ruston Kelly. How did this gig start, and what are some highlights of it for you so far?

The other guitar player and the bass player in that band knew me, just from living in Nashville, and they needed somebody who could play keyboards and guitar and sing. So they kind of just called me. I didn't audition or anything. It was just kind of like, this is the guy. I had actually met Ruston three years ago during COVID, we went on a hike together. We knew each other vaguely, but yeah, we just met. Actually, my first gig with them was on The Seth Meyers Show on NBC on April 3, this past just about two months ago. At this point, we were just out for almost seven weeks together, and we just got another run opening up for Noah Kahan in Atlanta. But they just feel kind of like my brothers. They feel like family to me in a way. And that's really special and rare. I've been on a lot of different gigs in this town, and to have that familial feeling in my job right now is incredible.

Another thing that stands out to me is your involvement with LS - I love the "From The Ashes" performance video in the Parthenon in Nashville. Could you tell us a little more about this project, and how you guys got this opportunity?

My friend Lydia Luce - I guess it started as a show at her house, called Lachlan Strings, and she puts on these concert series that center around songwriters accompanied by a string quartet. Every performance, they have a couple of songwriters, and someone writes a composition. She approached me and asked me to write a composition for the quartet, to be performed at the Parthenon, back in mid-December. And then I wrote the piece in January, in that time when it's very cold and the trees are bare. I was watching a lot of Carl Jung. It's about how we are continually reborn from our own ashes, as we go through life. We rise and we fall and we rise and we fall.

What made you decide to pursue something calmer on the side, like this, when Nico Son dives fully into alt-rock?

That's just the two lanes that I've always operated in, kind of like neoclassical ambient music over here, and that's what I'll put under my name as Chris Lippincott. And then Nico's Son is the alt-rock, more Radiohead-ish, Sigur Ros, dream pop stuff, I guess you could say.

Last but not least, our P&P classic - what's a lyric on "Let This Go" that sticks out to you, what about it inspires you, and how do you personally resonate with it?

"I know you like to be unkind, you're bold, I'm blind, get close, don't lie, don't blink, don't smile look in my eye." That one, [Dustin and I] came up together. I think it's just so quick and punchy. Everyone's been there with somebody, when you're in that moment where you're falling in love and it's so pure and so scary, but so visceral and invigorating in a good way.

Nico Son is just one of Chris Lippincott's numerous creative projects, which are developing simultaneously. The innovative, inquisitive, and well-rounded artist fully uses his distinctive background and skill set to his advantage. He echoes both the calmness and the roar, encompassing many common aspects of the human experience. If "Let This Go" or any of Nico Son's previous releases captivate you as well, we've curated just the playlist for you!