Symphony Space sits on the corner of 95th Street and Broadway on Manhattan’s posh and progressive Upper West Side. It’s the kind of neighborhood where the conspicuously conscious jog among sidewalk textbook vendors and dusty-wigged doyennes chatting up imaginary friends. Just outside the theater, the city is tearing up the street to upgrade the overcrowded subway station. Inside, it’s so quiet you can hear the dancers’ bare feet patter across the boards. As they move, a man in the shadows twirls knobs, pushes keys, fills the room with the sound of broken breath and disembodied voices looped in harmony with the action. For the second half of the Short Form Weave performance, the shadow is accompanied by yMusic, a small orchestral ensemble.

The shape-shifter in question is Ryan Lott. When he isn’t scoring performance pieces like this with Gibney Dance and Bang Group, he’s making electronic music that packs a psychotropic buzz as Son Lux. This dissonant milieu is where Lott thrives, collaborating incessantly with dancers (including his wife, Jennifer McQuiston Lott), DJs, indie pop stars like Jamie Lidell and classical mavericks like Nico Muhly. A graduate of Indiana University School of Music, Lott cultivated a following with similar gatherings in Ohio. In 2008, Son Lux released the sleeper album At War With Walls and Mazes to rapturous critical acclaim. He recently dropped the Weapons EP, using the song from War as a leitmotif for a suite of remixes and reinterpretations. His signature reads simply “Composer.” We caught up with the Alphabet City denizen before he took off to SXSW and discussed influences, out-of-body experiences, day jobs and dogs.

URB: The formula “classical + electronic = pop” seems like a heady concept. Is that too pithy a summation?
RYAN LOTT: Pithy can be good. Honestly, if you can come up with a brief way to explain what I’m doing technically, I’ll give you some money. But the spirit of what I’m doing is to make music that is as honest and true to me and my experience as possible. So if you hear classical or chamber elements merging with hip-hop or poppy stuff in my music, it’s just who I am. I’m fascinated with contrast, the juxtaposition of the profane and the sacred. I love finding things that share nothing in common and creating a musical situation in which both feel equally at home.

URB: Do you cringe when interviews begin with or dwell on that point?
RL: No. Most interviews begin less interestingly.

URB: How does feedback impact your creativity when you’re making experimental music that is described in exotic, sometimes exalted terms? Is there a taming or stimulating effect on your imagination?
RL: It’s impossible to describe the types of elated, even transcendent experiences I have alone in the studio making music. It’s the best feeling in the world. It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes, after several hours of working, something will shift. It’s like the roof above my head lifts away and I feel the rush of something that almost makes my body feel stretched out and time disappear. It’s as if I’m watching music happen, not really making it. Sometimes when I read critics’ positive reactions or receive kind notes from people or whatever, I get the sense that they’ve caught a glimpse of that feeling somehow. I think that’s completely magical. Music can travel through you and into other people. Its will tangles up with the will and spirit. So, I guess to finally answer your question, I obviously like when people heap gratuitous praise on my music. I’m not sure it impacts my imagination, though. I haven’t worked out the precise relationship between my imagination and ego.

URB: Is all this gravitas over-hyped?  Do you think, “People are taking this too seriously”?
RL: Ha. One of the great things about music is that you don’t have to take it seriously, but you can. Sometimes you want to study and immerse yourself in music, and sometimes you just want to shake your butt to it. I try to make music for both occasions.