Chris Ianuzzi – “Lonesome Highway Superstar” [Song Review]

New York-based avant-garde electronic music artist Chris Ianuzzi recently released the music video for “Lonesome Highway Superstar,” a track from his latest album, Maze.

The video, created in collaboration with Ethem Serkan Sökmen and İlke Köse, utilizes cutting-edge Disco Diffusion and Stable Diffusion AI image generation technology.

Talking about the song, Ianuzzi shares, “It’s a journey on the course that life is making. Starts in a dream state. There’s a loneliness and longing. It shows a positive step forward when the chorus comes. In the middle section, it becomes clear that there is a longing for a person.”

He goes on, “This song was based on a piece that I had called ‘Dreamer.’ You can hear me saying ‘Dreamer’ throughout this song. I went into change mode, kept certain things, and made new things to make the song what it is now. There are also lyrical references to a song called ‘Glides On’ on Avalanche’ the first album of my ‘I, Synthesist project.’”

Skirting the threshold of experimental, Ianuzzi’s music is definitely not mainstream, blending elements of IDM, industrial, ambient, glitch, and techno, conjuring up a sound suggestive of a Plutonian future. Imagine Pink Floyd, Tool, Howard Jones, and Three Dog Night tossed into a blender set on frappe, and you’ll have an inkling of Ianuzzi’s innovative sound.

“Lonesome Highway Superstar” rolls out on bleeping, burping, trickling tones atop a measured rhythm. Edgy, almost alarming vocals imbue the lyrics with dreamy, intoxicated savours, infusing the tune with a pensive, curious field of portentous, even menacing, textures.

Chris Ianuzzi

Akin to a lysergic trip through space, “Lonesome Highway Superstar” reveals the tenuousness of the terrestrial essence.

Run Time: 5:10
Release Date: November 13, 2022
Record Label: Satellite Symphonics P