Mondi Perdutti by Mondo Lava

PV-32

Athens, Georgia-A collection of lost Mondo Lava tracks have
finally been given new life after a late-night Ouija board session compelled Primordial Void’s Marcel Sletten to seek out M-A-
N-G-O L-U-A-U. It was then, while sipping daiquiris on Wiki-ki and chafing from sand in his thong, Marcel was suddenly struck by inspiration: a Mondo Lava compilation album! This album brings together songs, some recently rediscovered after an unearthed box of cassette tapes showed up, others from a demo originally submitted to, and rejected by, just about every mid-2000s tape label for being “too stupid,” “unlistenable” and “dangerous.” Now-defunct Aquarius Records, who let just about anything into their famed consignment tape display, wouldn’t even stock it.

Nowadays, though, the Californians Jams Quechum and
Leroy "ROC Yourbody" Who, or Mondo Lava collectively, are a
household name. The duo have previously released albums, such
as Parrot Head Cartridge (Hausu Mountain, 2014) and Ogre Heights (Hausu Mountain 2018), hailed by Amaya Garcia of Bandcamp Daily as music that “manages to throw the notion of ‘tropical’ on its head, and that is calming and insane in equal measures.” Given that prequels are in vogue right now, we finally get the origins story we’ve all been waiting for! The original bedroom (that’s right, these guys have beds, thank you very much) recordings of Mondo Lava. In fact, during the period in which these recordings take place, the duo lived all up and down the Californian Pacific Coast in such exotic locations as breakfast nooks and a rat-infested school bus rusting in a field of the Sacramento Valley, amidst broken bunk beds covered in sand spilled from pant pockets.

The album features guest appearances from musicians such as Mondo part-timer, Granite Earwig, and childhood friend, Jones Pinnochio, and a bootleg field recording of legendary Ghanaian Master Drummer Kwaku Daddy’s percussion ensemble. Rumor even has it that Billy Shears (yes, that Billy Shears) performs on "Jungle Top." With much of the album recorded straight to Walkman, the album is a document of slacker lo-fi psychedelic jams, and an escape of the tedium of go-nowhere jobs and the alienation of the then-emerging smartphone techno-dystopia instead for dreamworlds of Blavatskian-mystique. “We were promised Holodecks, but we made due with tapedecks.” Remember when Allen Ginsberg tried to levitate the Pentagon? No? Neither do I! But the music on this album is meant to evoke the same inept magical trickery, but instead of the State Department they target the Frozen Foods Department. "Dance of the Pale Blue Flame Broiled Whopper" was recorded during a ritual attempt to spiritually animate a cheeseburger. "Gazebo of the Owl Bear" was recorded at dawn in a haunted gazebo.

While the band has been sporadic in output due to the band members' far-flung locations, the duo toured Italy, Portugal, and Spain this past summer with fellow fifth-world travelers Babau, and are planning a 2023 Summer homecoming tour of their California cradle. The release of this album is the perfect squaring of the circle and, ouroboros eating its tail, as 2023 looks to be a year of returning to the roots for the group.

Athens, Georgia • Est. 2018

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