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Britta Phillips & Dean Wareham’s love album
23 June 2003

Gentle and slightly twisted does it on a modern masterpiece of romantic pop.

The most intelligently sincere romance record of the year, and perhaps of the decade, ironically enough has enough irony associated with it to satisfy those who need that. For one, this most-European of American albums has not been released anywhere but in the US. As the newest project from the 39 year old godfather of slo-core, it brashly ignores the past 15 years of fashion, indie and otherwise, instead recollecting gentle, hyper-romantic ’60s and early ’70s pop on the order of Nancy Sinatra/Lee Hazelwood and Jane Birkin/Serge Gainsbourg. And its opening track Night Nurse, a dreamy duet penned by Luna and Galaxie 500 front man Dean Wareham, is named after the UK version of the cold elixer Nyquil.
    Early conceptions of what became L’Avventura called for this record to be straight covers, and for Luna’s Britta Phillips to appear only as a guest. But Wareham and Phillips each had some new songs, and he ended up inviting her to create a duet album... and here we are.
    Six of the 11 tracks on L’Avventura remained covers. Standout track I Deserve It comes from a 2000 collaboration between Madonna and Swiss/Italian/Afghani producer Mirwais Ahmadzai. Not being a big Madonna fan, I hadn’t heard her version of the track and figured it must be Wareham’s own, going by the lyrical honesty as well as his compelling performance. What a mindfuck to find out the truth. (And yeah, now I’m gonna buy Madonna’s 'Music' album just because of how much I love the song.)
    In fact, as with other covers Luna and Galaxie 500 have done, all the ones here come off so naturally that they might as well be originals.
    40 year old Britta Phillips (who looks today like a healthy 25 year old—who carries herself with the calm of a princess), joined Luna between their 1999 album Days Of Our Nights and 2002’s comeback-of-sorts, Romantica, which featured their new lineup. Moving into the Romantica sessions she was still in a wonderful Atlanta, Georgia band called Ultrababyfat that put out a couple of great LPs in 1998 and 2001.
    Phillips left her Pennsylvania home at the age of 16, moved to NYC, and became the singing voice of the cartoon character Jem of Jem And The Holograms. In 1988 she landed a role alongside Julia Roberts and Liam Neeson in the film Satisfaction—having never acted or even auditioned before. She then moved to London to play with Belltower, and on returning to the US joined Ultrababyfat. She later worked with Ben Lee, which serendipitiously (by way of a shared guitar technician) got her set up with Luna.
    Acting seems to run in the family—Wareham recently took the male lead in Piggie, which debuted last month at the Ninth Annual IFP Los Angeles Film Festival. It’s by American Film Institute graduate and Vincent Gallo collaborator Alison Bagnall.
    The other covers on L’Avventura are Moonshot from Buffy St. Marie (previously covered for a BBC Peel Session by Galaxie 500), Hear The Wind Blow by Opal (who later evolved into Mazzy Star), Threw It Away by San Francisco’s Angel Corpus Christi (who four days ago joined Wareham and Phillips onstage at the Great American Music Hall for the song), Random Rules from The Silver Jews, and Indian Summer from The Doors’ Morrison Hotel LP.
    L’Avventura, produced by the legendary Tony Visconti, pulls no punches. It is a lush, gorgeous, hyper-romantic love album. At the same time there’s just enough spice in the form of Wareham’s lyrical twistedness, and in the bemusing juxtaposition of all these unlikely tracks, to add an urbane depth to what, in lesser hands, could never work.
    Utimately, this record is all about two outstanding vocalists who have manifested a musical reflection of the one thing that ever really matters. | Dean And Britta | | Luna | | Britta Phillips on ArtistDirect | | Britta Phillips interview on NewBeats | | Mirwais Ahmadzai  | | top of page |

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