|
Pulse of the Twin Cities Login |
|
If you do not have an account yet
Create One.
|
|
|
Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
|
|
|
|
Roma di Luna CD Review
Wednesday 08 November @ 16:03:18 |
 Roma di Luna
Face of My Friends
Self-released
myspace.com/romadiluna
Once you’ve become familiar with both groups, it’s hard not to hear Roma di Luna’s Face of My Friends as being strongly related to Kill the Vultures’ The Careless Flame. Taken together, the albums only amount to an hour of music and 16 tracks between them—for a unique listening experience, I’d recommend putting them in one playlist in iTunes and shuffling ‘em together.
 All of which is not to say that Roma di Luna doesn’t stand up perfectly well on its own. Husband and wife duo Alexei and Channy Moon evoke all that’s good and tender about the American folk tradition over the disc’s seven tracks, Channy singing lead on six, with Alexei stepping up to the mic on “The Blade in Your Back.” Channy is gifted with a voice that’s at once unique and familiar, simultaneously complex and comforting. It has none of the easy contours you’ve come to expect from coffeehouse chanteuses, falling more into the beguiling range of Jolie Holland. Channy teases a remarkable range of emotion out of it, from the desperate and pleading “Brother” to the warm and welcoming “The Face of My Friends.” Guitar (courtesy of Alexei) and violin (courtesy of Channy) form the bedrock of the sound, and additional instrumental colors are kept to an aboslute minimum: a tambourine here, a bass there and that’s pretty much it. The simplicity of the arrangements lets the melodies shine through. Too many roots groups, in my opinioin, swathe their sound in glitz and production, obscuring the downhome appeal of the genre, but it’s a problem that’s all but absent among groups like The Get Up Johns, The Ditch Lillies and others here in the Twin Cities.
If you’re familiar with Alexei’s work as rapper Crescent Moon, you might spend all of five minutes shocked that he’s involved with something so far removed from hip-hop, but what’s really shocking is how seamless and thoroughly unsurprising his contribution is here. “The Blade in Your Back” has some of the steely, flinty flavor of a Vultures tune, but nestled next to its surrounding tracks, it resounds more as a counterpoint of darkness to the candlelit warmth of the album as a whole.
All in all, a deeply satisfying listen that’ll warm a lot of cold nights to come. (Steve McPherson)
Roma di Luna play the release show for Face of my Friends at the Bryant-Lake Bowl on Sat., Nov. 11 with Mary & JG Everest. 9:30 p.m. $8/$10. All Ages. 810 W. Lake St., Mpls. 612-825-8949.
|
|
 |
|
|
Comments -
Post Comment |
|
The comments are owned by the poster. We are not responsible for its content.
NO comments yet! Be the first!
|
|
|
