AVAN LAVA

“Being engaged, always being present – it’s about maintaining a certain kind of energy. It’s all inclusive – there’s room for everybody,” describes multi-instrumentalist Ian Pai of the intraband state AVAN LAVA constantly aspires to. In many ways, AVAN LAVA is bigger than their parts and their sum – central to the band is the communing with their fans. “Our whole thing is the audience. It doesn’t happen without them.” It was this realization that first drew the core members of AVAN LAVA – Pai, producer-musician Le Chev and lead singer TC Hennes – into each other’s paths. The three had spent years orbiting each other in the New York music scene, with Le Chev even auditioning for Pai, who was with performative electroclashers Fischerspooner at the time. (“It’s still the only audition I’ve ever done,” says Le Chev.) When he eventually joined that outfit, Pai and he discovered their shared adoration of Daft Punk was only the beginning, and the two began collaborating on an undetermined project. While Pai and Le Chev found the music came easily, Pai was haunted by the voice he imagined singing over their tracks. “It’s a certain kind of tone that cuts through everything, because of where it sits in the frequency range,” Pai says of what he kept envisioning. Around that time, Pai saw Hennes perform in The Last Goodbye, a musical adaptation of Romeo and Juliet set to the music of Jeff Buckley. “As soon as I heard him sing, I knew that was it,” recalls Pai. Within days, Hennes came in to sing on a few tracks, and the final piece of AVAN LAVA snapped into cosmic alignment. With Pai amidst the tidal pace of touring, departing and returning for stretches of time, Le Chev and Hennes put together Vapors, AVAN LAVA’s first EP. On the strength of that offering, the group began lighting up audiences and garnering critical attention (prompting The Village Voice to call the band “lush, sparkling”). With 2012’s Flex Fantasy EP, the band built on their unique alchemy of soulful vocals laced through dime-stop beats, launching them on a trajectory that hasn’t stopped. The band embarked on a year-long string of sold-out shows in New York and a US-wide tour with Little Boots, all while managing to spread the AVAN LAVA gospel globally, as when the Seoul Institute of the Arts commissioned the band to put up a full-scale staging of their live show with 100 students. Their reputation as a transportive, over-the-top live act grew, with Noisey raving in a show review "You need these guys in your life!" Our latest EP 'Make It Real' is out now! iTunes: http://bit.ly/1KNWAXq Amazon: http://amzn.to/1xvY0U9 Beatport: http://btprt.dj/1P6Xh0m