The Green Child, a collaboration between
Total Control's
Mikey Young and
Grass Widow's Raven Mahon, doesn't sound much like any of their other projects -- and that's to their credit. On their self-titled debut, they craft experimental electro-pop, offering different but equally fascinating blends of those sounds from track to track. While each song revolves around intricately layered sounds and Mahon's dusky voice,
the Green Child rarely repeat themselves: "Bertha" is spacious and weightless, while "46 Timelines" is funky and slinky as it nods to their sci-fi influences (Mahon and
Young took their name, as well as lyrical inspiration, from a 1935 utopian science fiction novel by Herman Read). This ebb and flow feels natural throughout
The Green Child, most obviously on "New Year's Eve," a hypnotic collage of twangy guitar and bubbling synths that come and go as they please, but also more structured songs like "Her Majesty II," a piece of synth-fortified jangle-pop that provides the album's poppiest moment even as Mahon sings about ending toxic masculinity. Other standouts include "Traveler," which begins the album with increasingly elaborate counterpoint; "Destroyer," a lovely piece of dystopian sci-fi pop; and "Marie Elene," a transformation of a folk song by Keith Pearson into a cosmic lullaby. Fun, spooky, and thought-provoking,
The Green Child's retro-futurism only sounds better with repeated listening. ~ Heather Phares