I don’t make any sense. I was all set to review Thee Ohsees’ Hounds of Foggy Notion LP/DVD combo (on cream-colored or split pea-green vinyl!) when I sort of balked at the idea of reviewing aNOTHER Oh Sees record.
I mean I think they’re great and all but I’m starting to get a bit gay on them.
With that in mind I’m going to get all Gay on another band: The Lava Children. Like so many bands I’ve discovered in the past and freakin’ loved (Panoply Academy, Ty Segall, Pyramids), The L Children are on a label I respect, period; if it weren’t for their Graveface Records affiliation I wouldn’t know them from Dick Clark’s illegitimate half-nephew.
So there I am, stricken by the itch to check these guys out, and not only do they reward my curiosity with gorgeous pink-green watermelon vinyl, they manage to kick out some straaaaange jams, too. (Not that I’m surprised; Graveface has made my frickin’ day plenty of times in the past few years, reissuing Appleseed Cast’s essential Mare Vitalis, plus AC’s Low Level Owl on three-colored vinyls and a host of other random treats including an album from Wooden Wand-inspired goth-folkers Spires In The Sunset Rise and a slew of Black Moth Super Rainbow material.)
I’m going to be frank: I listened to Lava Children for 15 minutes at 33 RPM instead of the recommended 45 RPM and got a totally warped impression of its contents. I thought the singer was a dude! Well it’s not. It’s an Asian female, and she sounds great, like the chick from Sneaker Pimps without the smug smirk draped across every coo.
Hilariously, the record actually held up at 33 RPMs, btw; it would probably even work at 21 or 78 — with songs these fucked-up the details become less and less important with every spin. I’m detecting a flutter of a post-punk influence here but it’s all hazy as a fogged-up windshield: I have no idea what’s coming next and any discernible signpost is quickly unplugged and buried.
The Lava Children RAWK a lot harder than I would have guessed. I was expecting a glitched-out Nintendo-style Bubble Bobble-fied album after reading the misleading description slapped on the shrink wrap that mentioned something about “ColecoVision.”
I praise St. Christopher himself that this is not another redundant, pixelated electronic exercise. The Lava Children are too sharp for that; they’re too busy tweaking their guitar sound and changing gears every few seconds. Now that I think about it, this is a lot like a Lush-fed, dream-pop version of Deerhoof by dint of its lack of rough, spiky edges and razorblade math-rock breakdowns.
Whatever it is I like it. I was thinking earlier today that, though I’m not a huge fan of paying $12.99-$14.99 for 45 RPM records with at-most 5 or 6 songs, I always seem to be satisfied when I do. Good examples are the Animal Collective EPs (People, Water Curses and Prospect Hummer), Oneida’s Enemy Hogs, that self-titled Slint single/EP/whatever-the-fuck-that-one-record-is-with-the-body-on-the-cover and Harvey Milk’s Special Wishes.
They also tend to become rare; there are about 16,000 Blank Dogs 12″ as of this writing, and all of them are worth more than their original sticker price would indicate and out of print.
Back to The Lava Children: It’s worth the $2-per-song price tag (high when you consider that many 2XLPs offer a .75 cents-per-song rate or better, even higher for power violence/Locust/Daughters-style grindcore) when you consider the superior material and stellar colored-vinyl experience.
Just make sure you play it at 45 RPM (just kidding, it doesn’t matter too much, though the band would probably disagree with me on this one).
