Britta Phillips & Dean Wareham - L'Avventura
(Jet Set)
Wareham is not the easiest fella to get along with (just ask his former Galaxie 500 bandmates, Damon & Naomi), so I can only hope this brief holiday from his current band, Luna (hence, I presume, the title) is a minor fan pleaser while he writes some new tunes (over half of this duet with his Luna bassist are cover songs, including not one, but TWO(!) Madonna tracks, a Buffy Sainte Marie classic and a little known Doors' track).
However, it's the old Clay Allison/Opal track from Dave Roback and Kendra Smith ("Hear the Wind Blow") that's most telling, as it quickly becomes clear that this is an obvious attempt to fill the void created by the dissolution of Roback's follow-up Mazzy Star project. Covering one of his tunes opens the door for such a conclusion, an attempt made all the more obvious as soon as Phillips opens her mouth on her two tunes ("Out Walking" and "Your Baby") and unabashedly mimics Hope Sandoval to the point of distraction. All hope (no pun intended) of being taken seriously immediately flies out the window.
Still, aside from a superfluous reading (literally...Wareham recites rather than sings the lyrics) of Buffy's marvelous "Moonshot" and Phillips' unintelligibly mumbled whispering on "Knives From Bavaria," the album is full of pleasant, MOR tunes that feature Wareham's signature New Zealand drawl and is basically a Luna album in all but name. "Ginger Snaps" continues the long line of killer tunes that always grace Luna records and the stolid, almost reverential interpretation of The Doors' "Indian Summer" is a pleasant diversion on an album that neither excites nor annoys the listener.
However, one can only look askance at the dubious nature of the project, especially in light of the obvious "Mazzy Star lite" accusations sure to be visited upon it. Now I miss Roback and Sandoval as much as the next listener: Hope's Warm Intentions project is god awful and Roback seems to have fallen off the face of the earth (perhaps he and Manic Street Preacher guitarist Richey James are enjoying a cold one over a few good laughs somewhere), but this weak attempt to fill that void is disappointing. Phillips is nowhere near the vixen-voiced, sultry siren that Sandoval is, and Wareham thankfully doesn't even attempt to outdo Roback, surely one of America's finest guitarists. For Luna completists and undiscriminating Mazzy Star fanatics only.
And as for copping the title from a classic Michaelangelo Antonioni film, let's hope the other "films" in the trilogy, "La Notte" and "L'Eclisse" are not in the pipeline. Just go make nice with the rest of the band and get started on that next Luna release.
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