Each month, Consequence It puts the spotlight on an artist who is ready for the big moment with CoSign. By July 2024, that award goes to London artist Lava La Rue and his cosmic debut, STAR FACE.
Science fiction is loved for many reasons, but one of the main ones is the possibilities of manipulating reality. Have you ever lamented the rigid dichotomies of human society? There is a world waiting to be invented, free from those constraints.
London-based artist Lava La Rue has no problem creating worlds, and his impressive sci-fi debut… STAR FACE is a cosmic odyssey that leans into those gray areas, in terms of gender, kind and species. “When it comes to science fiction, you can say anything about an alien and people won’t question it,” Lava says. Consequence via video call. They refer to Starface, a genderfluid alien who crashed on Earth and is the protagonist of the album's journey.
“You could say, ‘Yeah, this alien doesn’t have a gender,’ and nobody could say, ‘Well, no, no, of course it has to have a gender because…’ Dude, this is an alien! So when it comes to science fiction, people just accept the reality that you give them.”
Get tickets for Lava La Rue here
With a rich blend of funk, psychedelic rock, R&B and dream pop, STAR FACE The album ranges from the earthly to the stratospheric, raising big questions about humanity in the process. Much like the alien that gives the album its title, Lava La Rue refuses to be pigeonholed or relegated to a certain style, instead tinting each song with the same psychedelic shade of peach and purple. Even the description of the album’s sound is a mishmash of ideas: “Funkadelic Britpop” is how Lava understands it.
But beneath all the dazzling sonic layers, STAR FACE is a concept album that is just a few steps away from a sci-fi romance film. It splits the difference between the film starring David Bowie The man who fell to earth and what Lava calls “lesbians” Ziggy Stardust.The project follows the titular alien Starface, who crash-lands in the United Kingdom and discovers his true mission: to save humanity and stop us from being so self-destructive. However, according to Lava, Starface “ends up becoming a little self-destructive.”
Meanwhile, a love triangle blossoms between Starface, a girl, and that girl's boyfriend (delightfully touched on on “LOVEBITES”), Lava takes aim at corporate greed and a “work 'til you drop” attitude to illustrate why humanity is suffering (the one-two punch of “CHANGE” and “HUMANITY”), and 17 songs later, we end on a cliffhanger, with Lava singing as Starface, “I crash-landed the day we met/ And watched the fate of the world change/ Do I stay here?/ Or save you?”
thanks to our partners at consequence.net
