Quiet Color

by john ziegler

Much digital space has been filled trying to describe Ava Luna’s sound. Critics and commentators have called it electro-doo-whop, electro-pop soul, post-punk dance-a-tronic pop-a-whop, and other combinations of the words electro, pop, soul, and doo and whop.  When the band lists its own influences (James Brown, Stax, Fugazi) it’s easy to see where they are coming from, from which precipice they are shouting. Yet no band in recent memory has so enjoyably and ponderously pooled their interests and talents as this Brooklyn seven-piece.

Artist: Ava Luna Song: Six Seven

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Accurately describing Ava Luna’s sound (the above attempts are all fine but also fall short) is less important than experiencing the band itself. Front man Carlos Hernandez, with his blue-eyed funk holler (calling to mind Beck at his most lustful), caroms through songs like an evangelist. He’s buoyed by a haphazard rhythm section (Ethan Bassford and Alex Smith), stiff-legged synthesizers (Nathan Tompkins), and a trio of shimmering backup singers (Sihuen Song, Becca Kauffman, Felicia Douglass).

Hernandez, born as he was of a soul DJ father and Latin jazz pianist mother, began recording back in high school under the moniker Ava. Around the time he was attending Columbia University, he and a handful of other students formed the outfit that would eventually become Ava Luna. They put out an album and played some shows, but if people think Ava Luna’s current sound is schizophrenic, they should have heard what came before.

“We were all over the place, seriously,” says Hernandez. ”Tape loops, samples, video projections, all sorts of things everywhere.”

Ava Luna’s first album, 3^rd Avenue Island came out of an effort to focus, rather than refine, the band’s approach. ”I can appreciate the irony of our efforts to simplify our sound just baffling everyone even more,” Hernandez jokes. ”It came down to our main interests lying in soul and punk as well as electronic dance music, so that’s the direction we ultimately decided to follow.”

Indeed, on 3^rd Avenue Island and their upcoming Services EP (due out tomorrow January 22^nd )  one can easily feel the immediacy of punk and post-punk, the heart and passion of soul, and the sheer danceability and energy of electronic music.

Services drops today on Cooling Pie Records and tonight Ava Luna plays a record release show at Silent Barn with So So Glos and Skeletons.

Next Saturday January 30^th Ava Luna helps headline Quiet Color’s Sloppy Circus at the House of Yes along with Javelin, Dinowalrus, the Shivers, and Shark? Plenty of artsy shit, costumes, pole dancing, aerial ballet displays, pyrotechnics, pizza and other thrilling, pants-dropping surprises all night — guaranteed!