Into the Light

Into the Light is the fifth solo studio album by Portland, Oregon-based guitarist Marisa Anderson, released June 24, 2016, by the artist's label Chaos Kitchen Music. Background In the album's notes, Anderson describes the album as being "Written as the soundtrack to an imaginary science-fiction Western film" with "ten songs [that] trace the story of a visitor lost and wandering on the shifting borderlands of the Sonoran desert." The album was preceded by two singles: the title track released March 10, 2016, and "He Is Without His Guns" released April 13. Style and reception Pitchforks Allison Hussey wrote that on Into the Light, Anderson "bends American guitar traditions for a completely different, but no less captivating, conceit: They soundtrack a theoretical sci-fi Western of Anderson's own invention, where it's up to the listener to fill in the cinematic details" and that "her faint picking encourages you to lean in and listen closer to soak in the details" such as "experiments with a more classical Spanish-style guitar" on "He Is Without His Guns". "Anderson's playing throughout the record is understated and exquisite" and "the only moments that feel dissonant arrive in "Resurrection" as a few unwieldy notes poke through, sounding like faraway car horns", though "these off-kilter moments act as foils to Anderson's fluid playing, again highlighting the baritone notes that anchor the song." Hussey concludes by calling the album "breathtakingly beautiful", "requir[ing] rapt attention", and "best enjoyed in still solitude", and that "even as Anderson's instrument simmers, it still reaches for the great beyond, and she makes you ache to reach along with it."