Penthouse (Not the Magazine)

Okay, so this advice is about 13 years to late but I finally have the forum for which to write a review that three, perhaps four, people will come across. Recently a friend asked me to suggest some good music. I immediately recommended Vampire Weekend and a few other fairly new things I am listening to currently. And then, because I was asked about good music, I slipped in an old favorite, Luna’s Penthouse. I recommend that anyone who is interested in music check out this album.

Luna was formed in 1991 by Dean Wareham after his four year run as front man for Galaxie 500 (who are also worth a listen) in the late 1980’s. The first five (four through Elektra) albums are incredible but unfortunately after they were dropped from Elektra records in 1999 when the record label decided not to release The Days of Our Nights the albums started to go down hill and by the time Britta Phillips replaced bassist Justin Harwood in 2000 and Romantica was released I was losing interest (though their last album Rendezvous isn’t bad).

But among these first five albums is 1995’s Penthouse, recently dubbed one of the top 150 albums of the 1990’s by Rolling Stone Magazine (though it should have been in the top 10). Penthouse is all that you could want from dream pop from the first song Chinatown to the cover of Serge Gainsbourg’s Bonnie and Clyde, it is pure brilliance. I was going to suggest a few tracks but once I was up to five tracks I realized I wanted to add some more and there are only 11 songs total on the album.

Trust me this album is worth a listen!

I was first introduced to this album and Luna in 1996 and had the opportunity to see Luna in 1998 in Charlottesville after Pup Tent was released and it is one of the best live performances I have ever been to (and I have seen some great performances). Among the many songs were several off this album and they were just as good live as on cassette.

This is another one of those albums that I have spent many nights going to sleep listening to and maybe the sound is an acquired one but I think that if you give it a listen or two you won’t regret it.

-June