Luna: An album strikes up and a man named simply 'Robert' ascribes himself the faux celebrity status of the tittle tattle celebrity gossip mags as he denies himself, me, and you too the decency of a surname at the foot of the press release. Release it:
"Here is the long awaited, new Luna album, Rendezvous.
Lie back...enjoy.
Robert"
Gloating with the smug smirk of subtle intimidation. Constrict them, idle bastards. I for one haven't been waiting long. Since Thursday in fact. The rest of you will have to wait a little longer. Till October 26 in fact. Eleven 'reputable' publications indulge in three-word-hyperbole so removed from Descartes hyperbolic doubt that, I, lazy journalistic reviewer it seems I am supposed to be, is left without doubt at the brilliance of the aforementioned album without even playing it.
Thankfully I play the record anyway.
The world turns itself inside out (Yes, file under Yo La Tengo Masterpiece, but classily so, thank you very much, no immature talk of so-and-so ripping off so-and-so needed here if you please) and I succumb, cynical critical coercion either forgotten or effective, guitars laced with silk stalk through the air. Allowing impossible metaphors like laced with silk; encouraging them, inspiring them. Take a trip towards Yo La Tengo along Pavement, set for an explosion of post-Washing Machine Sonic Youth and that's about the scale of things here...
This kind of dreamy spaced out post-modernist psychedelia creeps up every now and then, like a ghost making footprints in the snow, as it slips under the radar of populist consciousness. Consigned forever to be loved so much more by those who subscribe, and it's all the better for it. You see Luna are a band you can truly love, in the dark slipping softly away from the world, with the peculiarly pure altered consciousness that only music can provide...
Damn damn damn damn damn. The song "The Owl & The Pussycat" has just rendered the grand 'Sophisticated Lullaby' pictures I was about to paint here, so horribly obvious a thing to do that I can't nearly even begin to dare now. Not in the face of the oh-so-soothing, whisper-singing of Edward Lear's poem...
Rendezvous is a delightfully self-confident exercise in sculpting wistful, witty little absurdisms, coated in the hypnotic artsiness of New York guitar poetry. A relaxed, tender record with enough grace, humor, and intelligence mixed at just the right moments with heady rushes of musical energy that one is left captivated. Not quite 'beyond compare,' as hard-sell press releases would have me believe, but thoroughly enchanting.
1. Malibu Love Nest
2. Cindy Tastes of Barbecue
3. Speedbumps
4. The Owl & The Pussycat
5. Astronaut
6. Broken Chair
7. Star-Spangled Man
8. Motel Bambi
9. Still at Home
10. Buffalo Boots
11. Rainbow Babe
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