L'Avventura
With time marching relentlessly on and a gaggle of teen stars crowding you at every turn, what are maturing alt-rock cult heroes to do? If you're thenouveauteam ofLuna's Britta Phillips and Dean Wareham, you recruit veteran producer Tony Visconti and cut an album of originals and idiosyncratic, if nigh-perfect cover choices both familiar (Madonna's "I Deserve It,"Buffy Sainte-Marie's "Moonshot," theDoors' "Indian Summer") and obscure (Angel Corpus Christi's regretful "Threw it Away,"Silver Jews' "Random Rules") that evoke a couple decade's worth of artful sophistication, infused with a beautifully understated, ironic sense of Euro-detachment that evokesEdith Piafas much as it does theVelvet Underground. Those smart sensibilities--be it the gorgeous, dreamy vocal somnambulism of Phillips's "Out Walking" or the deadpan Wareham brings to the droll wordplay of  "Ginger Snaps" or harmonizing with his partner on the lush, string-backed "Night Nurse"--are crucially abetted by producer Visconti, who wraps their airy, detached voices in spare, sparkling settings that invoke everything from Parisian cabaret to Warhol's glory days and beyond, weaving a sophisticated tapestry of art-rock that's as deceptively laconic as it is day-dreamy evocative.--Jerry McCulley