Ava Luna

Ava Luna's metamorphosing art pop has spanned freestyle forms with bright vocal harmonies and percussive arrangements to more-structured indie funk and minimalist yet highly rhythmic alternative pop. Begun by multi-instrumentalist/engineer Carlos Hernandez in the latter half of the 2000s, Ava Luna's output gradually shifted in a more structured direction beginning with 2014's Electric Balloon, which was recorded as a quintet. Three albums later, 2018's Moon 2 was a more democratic effort with Hernandez stepping back as leader. That same year, the group also released a full-length reinterpretation of Serge Gainsbourg's Histoire de Melody Nelson. In 2025, a four-piece version of the band delivered a stripped-back eponymous album that prioritized the rhythm section. Brooklyn-based group Ava Luna began in frontman Carlos Hernandez's high-school bedroom, where he would write and record songs under the name Ava. In college he met Julian Fader and Nathan Tompkins, and the three of them changed the band name to Ava Luna, figuring "Ava" was probably already taken by a more prominent act somewhere. Hernandez spent time as an engineer and working on various small-scale noise and punk projects after college, with Ava Luna coming in and out of focus as the years went on. The self-released Lemming marked their unofficial debut in 2007. With 2009's 3rd Avenue Island, a homemade CD-R release, the band congealed yet again, this time featuring Hernandez on vocals with a host of various singers and a minimal musical backdrop of drums and synthesizers. The band followed in 2010 with the Services EP, featuring a different lineup and a sound that continued toward the heavy vocal harmonies of bands like Dirty Projectors with increasingly obtuse neo-soul-inspired musical backdrops. A proper debut surfaced in 2012 with the release of Ice Level. By this point, Ava Luna was more or less in a stable lineup, featuring Hernandez on vocals and guitar, Fader on drums, Tompkins on synths, Ethan Bassford on bass, and a trio of singers: Felicia Douglass, Kye Kauffman, and Anna Sian. The group toured in support of Ice Level, opening some larger shows for Twin Sister. They returned with the less chaotic follow-up Electric Balloon in 2014, marking their debut for Western Vinyl. 2015's Infinite House was an even more traditionally structured set of art funk and R&B-infused songs. Following its release, several members embarked on other musical endeavors, with Kauffman launching the performance art project Jennifer Vanilla, Douglass releasing music as Gemma, and Fader founding Coffee. Fader and Hernandez also released a debut album with vocalist Nadia Hulett as NADINE. In the meantime, Hernandez and Fader produced and recorded for artists including Frankie Cosmos, Mr Twin Sister, and Speedy Ortiz. When a five-piece Ava Luna consisting of Hernandez, Fader, Kauffman, Douglass, and Bassford reconvened in late 2017, Hernandez took less of a leadership role, and Kauffman wrote her first song for the group. The band issued a reimagining of Serge Gainsbourg's Histoire de Melody Nelson in March of 2018, and Douglass began touring with Dirty Projectors as percussionist/vocalist before the band released the resulting Moon 2 in September. A still more subdued outing for Ava Luna, it was partly influenced by the regular chants and refrains of a collection of tapes by '90s women's lib groups that Kauffman brought along to the sessions. Released in June 2019, the four-song Pigments raised funds for abortion-rights organizations, and the concert LP Live at Market Hotel appeared in June 2020 before Kauffman exited the group.With the remaining four members still working on solo projects, with their other bands, and as producers and engineers for other artists, Ava Luna eventually reunited in the studio for a self-titled LP that stripped things back to emphasize the rhythm section. Featuring a number of guests on orchestral instruments, but only on a select few tracks, Ava Luna was released on Western Vinyl in October of 2025.
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