Hot Lava – Lavaology
Erm, indie-surf-synth-gameboy-pop perhaps? I guess. I’m not really sure. It has all those elements in it, but I’d hesitate to pin any of them to this record too definitively.
You know, I really took some time to come round to this. I heard a promo mp3, asked for a review copy, and promptly ceased to like the music. It was really awkward, and not a little bit weird. I genuinely sat there thinking ‘gosh, this is shit, what was I thinking?’ But then things started to swing. The album I didn’t like began to slowly, over quite a few listens, seep into my brain.
Now? Well a pretty near 180° turn, actually. I’ll admit that the last couple of songs don’t do much for me at all, but for the most part this is bloody marvellous. The gameboy side is sprightly and surprising, the surfy bit gets you bopping along, and the little bit of scratch and crackle added to the guitar and vocals pulls it way back from ever threatening to be saccharine – it’s great.
So now that I’ve finally come around, I have to confess I heartily recommend this as one of the best examples of a kind of fuzzy electro-based and very dancefloor-friendly indie music which I have for some time been half on the verge of getting into, without ever quite clicking with the stuff. The drive, at its best, seems to come from some pretty relentless drumming and the wailing, distracted synth. This produces both a focussed rhythm and slightly unhinged melody that oddly remind me just a little of early Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.
If this music fails to ignite it seems often to lie in the tension between the synth and the vocals. These two are usually duelling fantastically, rolling along together, intertwining and breaking apart to define the urgency of the song in their own relationship. Just occasionally, they don’t quite spark one another’s tinder, and ignition is just not quite achieved. It’s rare though. For the most part this is a really good, slightly edgy, energetic album, full of tension and eccentricity. I like.
Hot Lava – Apple+Option+Fire
Hot Lava – Mummy Beach
Eccentric, yes… like it….er, no. I tried, ok? I listened twice to each, honest. I tried. Maybe next week. But I like my surf style to be punk, not pop I guess. The synth sound is kinda cool tho, I’ll grant them that, bring back the synths!
I think they’re great and I love the album. I’ve already invited them to Limbo!
Ooh, result. That would be brilliant – I’ll be at that one with bells on.
(Tart, fuck off until you clean your ears out)
Those fucking smileys just won’t stay where they can be seen, will they. Tart, there was supposed to be a really big fucking smiley there in order to indicate that I was just joking about the cleaning the ears comment.
Although, you might wish to consider it, now I come to mention it. Build up of wax can actually damage your hearing in the long term and that would be a disaster for a music fan.
what’s that? did you say something? hang on let me turn off the Dead Kennedys here (which have something to say at least, I might add)
Oooh, now they are good. And they have some of the best song and album titles in the business. Plastic Surgery Disasters – how were we to guess that would become mainstream television within thirty years.
I once had a treatment with those ear candle things. Hopi, is it, they call them?
A remarkeably pleasant experience I must say, very calming.
The cute chick giving me a head massage at the same time obviously made her own contribution to my relaxed state of mind!
That’s the ones, but they are, of course, not Hopi. Nor do they do very much. Ears syringed – that’ll do the trick.
Or blasted clean by the Dead Kennedys.
really like the songs posted especially mummy beach. i see these songs in the next Quentin Tarantino movie, definitely!! they , somewhat, remind me of some of the Queers work. Thanks again.
Dylan
Those things are actually a pretty horrible and dangerous hoax. Imagine the suction of air it would take to pull wax from your ear. Besides rupturing the ear drum it also be very uncomfortable. There have also been several cases of melted wax leaking through into people ears and burning them.
As to the positive effects. If you burn one of those things in a cup you still get the same amount of wax because the wax build up is actually from the wax paper made to build them melting and re-solidifying. The relaxing effect is caused by the warming feeling near your head and because low level white-noise-like-sounds like fire reminds us of the womb. I don’t want to be patronizing or lecture, this is purely a concern for people post.
Believe me, I take the cleaning of my ears seriously to the point of obsession and those things are bad. Not that I didn’t use them for yeas before I had this pointed out to me.
This really is nice music by the way. Relaxing, yet upbeat. Not at all something I would expect to like but it’s quite funky (said the man in the world least qualified to use the word ‘funky’).
I would have said funky too, but I forbid myself from using the word.
That’s just mean Ben..
There I was with a nice warm fuzzy memory about a darkened room, a soothing ambience and a hot chick, and you get all health & safety on me!
I might have to mention Harrison Ford’s gastric problems again just out of spite!
He had diarrhoea, you know.
Who did? Harrison Ford?
No.. When was this?
Apparently he did something incredibly cool in a movie once, but not because anyone involved was incredibly witty or anything, largely because a little brown trickle was starting dribble down the back of his leg.
Hm, “hot lava” indeed.
I like them, though I could handle things being a bit more manic and raucous – I imagine they could be great fun live if they really cut loose.
The second song reminds me of Zappa’s “Lemme Take You To The Beach”… probably the whole mummy thing.
That’s a good call actually. If they got a bit more frantic and maybe even a little angry, they might sound amazing.
Then again, I suppose they could just ruin everything, but it’s an enticing suggestion.
Hmmm.. ‘Hot Lava’.. What’s that about?
I mean Hot Lava as opposed to what exactly? Cold Lava?
Because that’s pumice, but I suppose that’s not such a good name for a band.
Dylan
I was just trying to help. Toad will back me up that my work has led me to have an almost manic fixation with aural cleanliness and upkeep. You know we are twenty years from a truly sonically accurate hearing aid and until then those little shells are all you have. So take care of them.
As to Hot Lava, I was actually thinking the opposite. That if they relaxed a little I could really see myself drinking a mojito and listening to them while in a hammock. But the manic thing might work nicely too.
So in other words: HOT LAVA WE HAVE NO ADVICE TO GIVE YOU! But they probably knew that anyway. For now, I am really enjoying what I’ve got.
You know I still haven’t actually heard this. I’m away on client site in London and, while I can sneakily get online, I can’t really start blasting out tunes from the client’s computers.
That, and the fact my ears have packed in after years of hopi candle abuse.
i would never dare to give them advice. This is really good stuff.
Well, I might give them advice about aural hygiene. but I do that with everyone.
Oh no, we HAVE ADVICE!!!! Go Punk young men! Geeze,what do I have to do to you all? Perhaps burn Hot Lava into your oh so delicate little ears! Or just let it trickle down the back of your legs? Seriously band members of Hot Lava, go punk, go punk, go punk xoxox