If you had only ever read about Ava Luna, it would be easy to get the wrong idea. Here is a Brooklyn band that cheekily describes its genre as “sad reggae.” In interviews, band members thoughtfully muse about the semantic distinctions between being a “band” and a “group” and describe Ava Luna as “more of a ‘place’ than anything else.” Stated influences for the new album include a crate of cassettes containing “neo-pagan goddess chants from ’90s women’s lib groups,” rescued from a tag sale.
All of which—on paper, at least—might seem to resemble a deconstructionist art project more than a rock band. Which, too, is a ruse. Ava Luna’s music is visceral. A weirdly effortless negotiation between indie-rock, R&B and swelling art-pop, it is never tedious or meandering. 2014’s Electric Balloon solidified the approach; 2015’s Infinite House bettered it, and managed the bewildering task of delivering a live-favorite banger in the form of a hallucinatory fable set in 5/4 time (“Steve Polyester”).
With its excellent fourth album, Moon 2, the band evokes a cosmic utopia of its own making and yet remains tethered to a relentless, earthbound groove. Highlights like “Childish” and “Deli Run” (both sung by keyboardist Felicia Douglass, who emerges as an increasingly crucial melodic presence) vibrate, rustle, shake and pulsate like Speaking in Tongues-era Talking Heads b-sides. If this is an interplanetary utopia, it’s a rhythmic one: Drummer Julian Fader’s propulsive grooves jostle for space with vintage drum machines (“Moon 2”) and toy-like synthesizers (“Mine”). Even the electric guitar works as a sort of percussive instrument, announcing itself in little staccato scrapes on “Deli Run.” Vocal hooks trail into chant-like refrains, some evidently inspired by those women’s liberation tapes (“All the things he read / Nothing in his head!”—and repeat).