I saw Guerilla Toss last year and don’t remember much about Kassie Carlson because it’s tough to concentrate on characteristics of people when they’re blurry as fuck and surrounded by sounds that could bludgeon out a devout terrorist upon contact. But hey, if GToss is any indication she knows her stuff, and this collection of two sold-out tapes, one per side of vinyl, fleshes out her place in the underground world outside of that band everyone’s been talkin’ up for a good while now. Her Jane La Onda nom de plume carries with it a strange mystique, a tinny, toybox sound that changes shapes constantly as she spits coy nursery rhyme-style verse(s) post-Cocorosie. Buy Buy Buy is an interesting sojourn, but to me this material would have sounded just fine on tape; the real gold here is the Size Queen side (in my twisted mind) because its coldwave sensibilities are bettered by the vinyl format. I also feel The Spectacle plays to Carlson’s strengths just a bit more, teasing out the softer side of her voice and offering an elegant landscape consisting of lush, green beats, a misty-blue rhythmic spray, and cute lil’ bass lines that contribute more than you’ll realize at first. Vaporwave heads will want to claim Size Queen for their own but don’t fall for the ruse, brother; it ain’t legit. In other news, note the several instances of coruscating, often call-and-response, pitch-bent vocals, both higher and lower, as they fly across your ear’s path like sparklers dazzling your eye; now that you’ve noted them, enjoy them and contextualize them… My work here is done.
More about: Size Queen / Jane La Onda
