Eva Luna

The only full-length album recorded by Moonshake's original lineup, Eva Luna is bursting with ideas and tension; dissonant instrumental lines careen off of both noisy samples and spacey dream pop textures, resting on a bed of hypnotic dub bass grooves and deliberate, deeply funky percussion. Just as exciting as the seemingly alien soundscapes is the precarious coalition between singers and songwriters Dave Callahan and Margaret Fiedler, who weave their divergent songwriting and performance approaches into something of a double-sided personality. Callahan delivers his tales of despairing cynicism and rage over modern urban life with theatrical growls and nasal wails, while Fiedler's hushed murmurs and understated purr belie the aggression lurking under her songs' often nightmarish psycho-sexual dramas. Above all, Eva Luna's sound collages are dark and edgy, regardless of whether their overall tone is mellow or furious; the album's dense layers of sonic detail and the ebb and flow between Callahan and Fiedler's contrasting songwriting styles make it a richly inventive, endlessly fascinating listen -- and unfortunately the only full-length album of its kind in the group's oeuvre. Matador's American reissue appends the three tracks from the "Secondhand Clothes" single. AllMusic Review by Steve Huey