THE GREEN CHILD is the musical avatar of Mikey Young and Raven Mahon, who met, hung out and started to spark when their previous respective bands – Mikey’s Australian synth outfit Total Control, and Raven’s Grass Widow, played a show together in Oakland, California; Raven’s home state.
Formerly collaborating long-distance, they released their self-titled debut album in 2018; it was a lot of fun, containing sultry little psych-synth numbers like “Traveler”.
The name? That came from Herbert Read’s 1935 utopian, communist, sci-fi novel of the same name.
Two years on they’re back and they’ve just released “Low Desk: High Shelf”, a a taster for Simmering Basset, their second album, due to hit the racks of your local record store in late October.
Take a listen below; slip inside, join the picnic (actually, whoah; maybe don’t). You’ll find a really cute and melodic indie-synth number, that’s maybe actually a little bit off in the weird woods. Raven brings a warm and detached intonation to the melody; a little psych guitar riff wends a cracking off-kilter pop tune home. Think Hot Chip, Wye Oak, The Wake; think Broadcast clutching a copy of Smash Hits in one hand, but steadfastly refusing to show you what they’ve got clutched in the other behind their back.
“The song was inspired by Albert Camus’ The Stranger and his theory of absurdism loosening up reality,” says Raven.
“In one dimension, a story is constructed from nothing, arbitrarily, like the photograph presenting a selected perspective. And then in the following dimension, we are subjected to that story’s rules and judged by how fully we embody them.”
The playful, carefree (?) picnic gore of the accompanying video comes courtesy Nemali Hypolite. She said: “When directing this video, I kept one thought in my conceptual orbit; the pursuit of happiness.
“I wanted to experiment with the soft whimsical notes of this song, its lyrical depth, and my own indignant interpretation of the insiders’ club we call the pursuit of happiness: one that employs obvious metaphors, basic colour aesthetics, and tacky gore.”
The Green Child’s Simmering Basset will be released by Upset The Rhythm on download, CD and vinyl formats on October 23rd. Place your order at the label’s shop here.
