OUNDS

Trip Lava is a psych/prog project headed by Joel Lee out of Minneapolis. Really I never heard of Trip Lava until now, and this was the third release, apparently the last one appearing in 2010. Everything you hear is from Joel, guitars, bass, drums, synths, drum machines, etc. This album bears some really weird titles, which as it turns out, is really Pig Latin-inspired (without the "ay" tagged on to everything), in this case the album title "Ounds" translating as "Sound" (if this was Pig Latin, it would be "Oundsay"). It's full of similar titles like "Ouseh of Orsmirr" ("House of Mirrors"), "Osmicc Oldeng Ordsw of Onmeldag" ("Cosmic Golden Sword of Meldagon"), "Oomsmushr" ("Mushrooms"), etc.

Anyways, this is some great space rock, with lots of guitar and spacy analog synths. I really dig the synth sound as it really has that wonderful analog sound. I really have a difficult time comparing this to other acts. There's at times a Krautrock feel to the music, especially during the more "out there" parts. I never thought of Minneapolis to have much in a way of a space rock scene going on, but I'm glad at least Joel Lee/Trip Lava sure made a stab at it, and a wonderful one at it too.