A creative multi-hyphenate burning a trail in their path, Lava La Rue might well be the future, but they've arrived in the here and now.

Words: Martyn Young. Photos: Patrick Gunning.

"I really feel like I'm just getting started," says rising alt-pop icon Lava La Rue, reflecting on four years of creative adventures and a wealth of some of the most inventive and vibrant music around. It's positioned them firmly at the heart of the UK creative scene as one of our most powerful and exciting voices. In 2022, though, things are a bit different. It's time to shake things up. Lava La Rue is ready to push their boundless creativity to the next level and truly cement their place as a visionary artist. 

Starting the year with the release of incendiary queer anthem 'Vest & Boxers', as we reach the summer, Lava is releasing their definitive musical statement in the shape of the 'Hi-Fidelity' EP. A lot has changed in just six months, though. The world is in flux, and Lava's creative vision has crystallised into an idiosyncratic aesthetic, as opposed to the disparate genre-hopping eclecticism that defined their earlier period. In short, there's been a hell of a lot going on. The one constant has been the ethos of collaboration and community that drives everything Lava does. 

"It's been a rollercoaster year," they begin, seeking solace from the sun on the hottest day in history. "Politically, it feels like everything could crumble. Right now, there's global warming and war. Politics in the US and the UK just seems like it's falling apart, but through that, there has been a sense of community gathering and people talking about how they feel with people creating collectives and communities around them to support them through these times." 

"Even though it comes from a place of struggle, the resilience of people coming together is a beautiful thing," they continue. "I've definitely seen that through queer communities or trans communities or working-class creative communities that are like 'let's all get together and build something together because we can't rely on anyone else to do it'. That togetherness has given me a lot of hope this year." 

Sharing bonds and working together to nurture relationships, both social and creative, has allowed Lava to express their personality and explore their own unique culture and heritage. It's at the heart of everything. Lava has a remarkable talent for spotting something special, whether in people, a sound, a vibe, a style or something floating in the creative ether. There's no master plan, though. No blueprint for how to do it. Everything they have done, from their own music to forming and leading pioneering arts collective NINE8, has all come from the same organic place. 

"From the moment my mates who I went to college with were like, 'Oh, you should put this online as Lava La Rue', I was just like, 'Oh, cool'. I didn't really care if it was just my five friends listening to it or if it was 50,000 people. It was just cool that I could make a thing and put it out into the world," they explain. 

In their earliest musical memories, the half Jamaican, half Latvian, inquisitive kid was immersed in a strong heritage that has informed their music and creativity ever since. "I grew up in a household with my grandma that listened to a lot of lovers rock and rocksteady," they remember. "Trojan records stuff and variations on late-70s and early-80s reggae. Lovers rock has a real psychedelic, smooth, soulful touch to it. It's also very guitary and made for live music. In many places, it's very experimental as well, with a lot of synths. Sometimes I listen to new-wave Canadian indie bands, and I can actually sonically hear some influence of what was happening in Jamaica in the 70s, whether it's intentional or not. That's where I started out."

In their formative years discovering music, Lava was drawn to exciting, vibrant sounds and big personalities. The first album they owned was by Gorillaz, because they were enthralled by the cartoon images. "I was really into comic books as a kid, and I saw the designs by Jamie Hewlett and instantly was drawn to that. I had no clue what the music was, and I was too young to be like, oh, that's the man from Blur. I was 8 years old!" they laugh. 

Following this musical awakening, they embarked on a path that would define their boundary-pushing, anything goes aesthetic. "By the time I turned 13, after Gorillaz, I went down a whole indie route," they reminisce fondly. "This was an era in the late-00s and early-10s where pop-punk, Avril Lavigne and Paramore were all the rage. I also grew up in an area with a huge British punk heritage. The kids who lived in West London's parents and grandparents were very much affiliated with The Clash, Ian Dury and the Blockheads and that kind of thing. I formed a band with some of them. We were called The West Borns because we were all born in West London. We'd play at local street festivals; they were proper community-led street fairs, and we were a band of 13-year-olds playing our guitars and wearing ripped skinny jeans. We wanted to be an all-girl band version of The Clash but at the age of 12." 

Perhaps one day we might see a reunion of The West Borns? "That would be hilarious," they laugh. "I think I'm in touch with the drummer on Facebook." 

Obviously, The West Borns didn't take over the world, but Lava knew that music was something that was going to drive them forward. It led them to meet two pivotal figures that would influence everything they do. The three like-minded friends began to hang out, formed a lifetime bond and started making music in their own primitive style. "I was in sixth form college with my mates Mac Wetha and Biig Piig. We were all in the same class together, and before we had any of those names, we were sharing beats and little songs we had written or going to open mic nights together," they explain. "I sat down with Mac one day in a cafe after school and showed him this poem, and he was like, oh, you should put that over these bedroom beats I've been making. Me and Jess, who is Biig Piig, around the same day, were thinking of artist names. This was proper SoundCloud era in 2015. We were thinking of SoundCloud user names. I was like, what do you think of Lava La Rue? We were both like that's great, cool! It was us in our lunch break at the music hall trying to figure out cool little names." 

When they think back to those earliest days, the contrast in where they are now becomes very clear. "When we started, it was super DIY," they say. "There was a lo-fi sound that people associated with us. For some people, that was a stylistic choice because the genre was quite popular on the internet, but for us, there was no other choice. We didn't have the privileges of affording sound isolation units for the studio and having clarity. What do you do if you don't have sound isolation or clarity? You just put a shitload of reverb on it and make it seem intentional, and then you create a genre out of that. It's a smart thing to do. If you're in an indie band and you can't afford to have that new age crystal clear Arctic Monkeys production sound, then you become like a shoegaze band and put everything through so many effects channels that it becomes so washed out that you can't tell that it's low quality." 

Now eight years into creating and four years into releasing music, Lava finally has some of what they need to bring their vivid creative visions to life. "I have more resources and people around me now. I can make things sound a lot more like I intend to rather than being forced into a style due to a lack of resources. That's amazing because I can make things sound like the idea I have in my brain. I'm in a position now where if I want a violin or a double bass player, I can just get them in the studio. Having that is incredible. You can hear such a sonic shift in the music. Not just with me but with all my friends as well." 

That sonic shift is all over 'Hi-Fidelity' with its amorphous alt-pop, psych-washed sound. The progression isn't necessarily an abrupt shift, though - it follows on from their last solo release. "I feel like I just started opening up a conversation on my last EP 'Butter-Fly' where I'm trying to expand some ideas sonically and genre-wise." 

There's an extra confidence and sense of ambition in the music they're making now as the full Lava La Rue experience comes to life. "Everything before was based on little freestyles and was like something me and mates at school made in our bedrooms," they continue. "Every release I've done was a collection of things I made in like 2017, and things I just put on a mixtape. Now, I'm focusing much more on having a project tell a narrative both sonically and lyrically as a body of work.

"There's so much more consistency now. It's allowed me to delve in and expand on this sound. I just want it to feel even bigger and make a statement. It's this fusion of psychedelia and rock and indie mixed with things you can hear from my more R&B-inspired projects, and hopefully, I can get a real solidified genre fusion from that," they say excitedly. 

What about that all-important album, though? Could it be on the horizon? "The idea of an album is definitely calling me," says Lava. "I think it's time." For now, though, the 'Hi-Fidelity' EP is a supremely satisfying teaser. "This project makes the Lava La Rue sound a lot clearer," they add. "The music moving forward will be an expansion of that. I'm glad I haven't released an album until now because I was a kid just trying to get my bearings and get the right resources around me. If I had made an album two or three years ago, it wouldn't have been fully formed because I didn't have what I needed. Now is the right time. It feels authentic. It feels me. It represents many elements of my identity, both who I am, where I'm from and how I feel. It makes sense to me." 

The EP deals with the resonant themes of growing up and finding your place in the world. Finding your own identity. "It's about growing pains," says Lava. A lot of the ideas in the songs are because I had just left teenhood, and I was starting to approach thoughts and ideas as a young adult as opposed to everything else I've released that was written and conceptualised as a 19-year-old or a 20-year-old. I have a different approach to life now and different thoughts and feelings when it comes to love, coexisting and mortality."

One particular song on the EP - closing track 'Motel' - is perhaps the best thing Lava has released. A vast, chunky, soulful, spacey, funky banger - the track encapsulates the vibe of the whole project. "The main idea of that song is when is too old to die young," explains Lava. "Growing up, when I heard about the 27 club and saw Jimi Hendrix and Amy Winehouse or whatever, because I was so young, I thought they had lived these big fruitful lives. 27 seemed quite old to me. Now that I'm 24 and 27 isn't that far away, I'm like fuck, man, that's young. There's so much I want to do, and so much I want to achieve. I explore that in that song. That expiry date that some people put on youth and craziness. It's like fuck, I don't even know anything right now. There are more mature existential ideas on this EP."