On the first couple passes, Ava Luna's Ice Level seems an almost impenetrable mess, charting a dizzying course between the itchy art-funk of the Dismemberment Plan, Tim-and-Aaliyah's future-perfect R&B, Dirty Projectors' forays into slip-sliding harmonics, and a generous helping of funky old soul. But even after you've traced out the many roots of the New York "nervous soul" septet's gnarly genre-bending, you'll find there's simply no telling where they'll take it from one minute to the next. With his band restlessly undulating around him, Ava Luna frontman Carlos Hernandez coos about calculus, coming off a little like The Soulman Who Fell to Earth. Still sounds like a bit of a mess, doesn't it? Sure is; and a glorious one at that.
Hernandez, son of a soul DJ with a background in noise-punk (among other things, he produced the Stateside version of Fucked Up's "Year of the Pig" 7"), belongs to the post-Prince school of falsetto-forward vocalists. Which is not to say he's a particularly studious singer; as much as or more than the man from Minneapolis himself, I'm reminded of the clear-eyed, chameleonic croon of Multiply-era Jamie Lidell, particularly when, like Lidell, Hernandez's love for the music comes across closer to full-absorption rather than simple idolatry. He's got quite a foil in Becca Kauffman, who takes a couple of striking Aaliyah-inspired solo turns here; with both Babygirl's all-knowing tone and her incredible reserve, she slips neatly into these clattering beats, where Hernandez wobbles around them. Kauffman, Felicia Douglass, and Anna Sian can often be found joined in zig-zagging, out-from-nowhere harmony, more than a little reminiscent of the vocal derring-do Angel Deradoorian and Amber Coffman brought to the Dirty Projectors' still-spectacular Rise Above and Bitte Orca. But with so much going on in, under, and around them, Ava Luna never allow themselves the time to fix on any one element; not only do they they sound like a lot of things, they manage to sound like most of them all at once, an impressively deft balancing act atop an ever-shifting platform.
Beneath the vocals, Ice Level's fidgety future-funk seems forever on the verge of flying off the rails, accruing-- then discarding-- an endless stream of whirrs and gurgles. Ice Level's made up of little moments, its unapologetically wriggly, cacophonous caterwaul providing one tiny thrill after another. With all that racket swooping in from all angles, the initial impression is that of utter chaos, one some listeners may never be able to quite settle into. But cock your ear to Ice Level a few times, and it begins to develop its own sort of machine logic, all these bursts of noise propping up Hernandez and co.'s abstracted come-ons and spaced-out soul-searching. Locating the songs themselves amidst these impossible shapes isn't always the easiest, but Ava Luna manage to wrangle the careening elements into a series of sweet spots well-suited to their attention-deficient dalliances with dance music, past and future. Note the ease with which "Ice Level" glides from late-1990s pop radio to sweltering strings of Isaac Hayes, or the way the skittish Destiny's Child nod "Wrenning Day" always seems a second away from spinning itself out. Songs bend, dip, double-back; that "whoa, what was that?" feeling you'll get listening to Ice Level? It persists, no matter how much time you've spent puzzling it all out.
Restlessness aside, I suspect most folks'll find their trouble with Ava Luna is located in the back of Hernandez's throat. Though his love for R&B's slippery side is readily apparent from the first time he opens his mouth, there are moments when he bends so far into a note, it comes off as slightly parodic, a little closer to Beck's winking Prince homage "Debra" than the man himself. These moments are fleeting, though, and they're smartly counterbalanced by the liquid-cool trio of Douglass, Kauffman, and Sian. And, with so much else going on, it's a feeling that, like almost everything else about Ice Level, seems fleeting. Ice Level's willingness to take so much on at once can be more than a bit discombobulating-- you throw this much at the wall, not all of it's going to stick-- but there's a real sense that if they could settle things down just a touch, there'd be a little more for the listener to grab onto from one spin to the next. But, while Ice Level's an awful lot to process, it's the finest sort of overload; listen closely enough, and you can almost hear your circuits being rewired.
