***"At the very dawn of the 90s, Love Child's debut 7” made a splash on the burgeoning scene of shambolic bands and lo-fi recordings. Back then, they were mentioned in the same breath as Pavement, Sebadoh, or Beat Happening. But Love Child’s two great albums and sparkling singles have become the stuff of record collectors, unavailable vis streaming and out of print, until now. Never Meant to Be: 1988-1993 pulls from these releases and some unreleased radio sessions, unearthing a trove of lost gems by a band that could be the bestof all of the 90s buried treasures. Culled from their smashing debut 7-inch, their two full-length albums, another great single and some unreleased radio sets (including a Peel Session), Never Meant To Be has catchy hooks, gritty noise, sneakily-deft playing, brainy but blunt lyrics, and lots of other awesome stuff. Love Child were part of lo-fi’s beginnings, but also had the NYC pedigree to absorb predecessors like the Velvet Underground, the Voidoids and Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. (Their swirl of brightness, brains, and brawn led Byron Coley to liken them to a fantasy VU made up of Moe Tucker, Doug Yule, and Angus MacLise). Will Baum started Love Child while a student at Vassar College, bringing on classmates Rebecca Odes and Alan Licht. At first, Baum wrote the majority of the songs, bringing a Modern Lovers-like garage-pop attack to the band’s 19-song whirlwind debut album Okay? (Homestead, 1991) But Odes and Licht contributed songs as well, each with...
2XLP $39.35
03/08/2024