Ava Luna Moon 2 Colored Vinyl Edition

On Moon 2 Ava Luna's de facto band leader Carlos Hernandez steps back, leaving
space for the rest of the band members to step up and step into roles they hadn't
occupied on previous albums. Felicia Douglass (now a touring member of Dirty
Projectors) worked with percussion and sampler, Julian Fader experimented with
synths, nearly every band member ran the computer during recording sessions, and
Becca Kauffman (aka performance artist Jennifer Vanilla) composed her first song for
the group "On Its Side the Fallen Fire," a deeply layered orchestral piece of Kate
Bush grandeur meets Julia Holter reverie. Compared with previous Ava Luna
albums, Moon 2 has fewer sharp turns into dissonance, fewer celebratory guitar
parts, none of Hernandez's signature screams. Nevertheless, the infectious buoyancy
of "Deli Run" and "Walking With an Enemy," are warm and bright, and songs like
"Centerline" and "Phoebe (Set it Off)" venture confidently into pop territory. The
title track, paint ing the elation and tumult of a crush, is set against a swaggering
reggae bassline and warbling Kraftwerk synths. "It's like, every sci-fi movie has a
nightclub," says Kauffman. "These are the songs in that nightclub."