Chris Russell - Lumen (2026)

Lumen, the stunning new album from Chris Russell, and Russell’s 4th solo release on Spotted Peccary Music, renders both physical and metaphorical forms of light as an audio experience. Inspired by natural light and spiritual illumination, these eight ambient impressionist pieces glide from one dreamlike brightness to another. This is an album that invites meditation and reflection, calling the listener to cast Lumen's titular light within.

Russell uses more traditional instrumentation than on prior releases; here, soft piano interludes serve as intermissions between episodic electronic infused ambient sections. One such section, “Vortexon” is a shimmering rush, a swirl of color like a nebula spinning in space. Closer “Whisper Moon” drifts like the gently-pulled tides, and recalls Russell’s prior album Labyrinth, which also ended with a piece inspired by the moon.

"Luminescence" was written as a foil to some of Russell’s previous works, which explored and conjured the dark unknown. Now “Luminescence" glimmers and gleams, textures pulsing with the joy of illumination, the searing clarity of illusions dispelled. Lumen dances and bends in the light spaces between the notes exploring the truly inspirational side of the ambient expression and fulfilling a calling for Russell to excise all demons.