Moonshake
Eva Luna

DeCaso.Musicale

The Moonshake, a memorable formation. "Eva Luna" (1992), a masterpiece.

Dave Callahan (vocals, guitars, and sampler), Margaret Fiedler (vocals, guitars, and sampler), John Frenett (bass), and Mig Moreland (drums and percussion).
These are Moonshake.

A brilliant and refined blend of Can, Public Image Ltd, and My Bloody Valentine. Experimentations made of krautrock polyrhythmics, obsessive sampling, jazz flashes (episodically marked by typical instrumentation), dub fusions and venomous noise guitar riffs in wave atmospheres (not too vaguely reminiscent of Lydon and co.), at times industrial and almost delirious, through which Callahan's voice (sharp and acidic) and Fiedler's (ethereal and delicate) alternate, splitting the two essences of the work composed of experimental oddities and high atmospheric moments.
This is "Eva Luna".

Certainly worth mentioning: the catchy "City Poison", which epically starts it all while more or less keeping the characteristics of the work under wraps; the sparse verses of "Beautiful Pigeon", leading to a single explosive chorus; the aggressive guitars among raving brass in "Secondhand Clothes"; the excellent performance of a dreamy Fiedler in the moody "Blister" and finally the chaotic "Drop in the Ocean", perhaps the one closest to Can.

The essence of the British band, active since 1991, surely resided in the key figure of Callahan (who at the time was coming off the indie experience with Wolfhounds), but partly also in that of Fiedler (later a touring member in the live sections of Wire and PJ Harvey). This (artistically) fortunate partnership lasted only one more album, a mini-album, after which Callahan continued without Fiedler until 1997, continuing to offer high-level material, but most probably a step below the highest peak reached with this first LP of theirs.