Luna emerged in the 1990s as one of indie rock’s most revered acts, crafting wistful, melody-driven songs built around the voice and guitar of Dean Wareham. The group formed in 1991 in the wake of Wareham’s earlier band Galaxie 500. Its original lineup was a trio that also featured Justin Harwood, formerly of the Chills, on bass and Stanley Demeski, late of the Feelies, on drums.
After joining Elektra, Luna issued its first album, Lunapark, whose restrained, Lou Reed- and Tom Verlaine-inflected singing and spare arrangements prompted comparisons to Wareham’s prior work. In practice the record introduced brisker tempos and more incisive hooks, a direction fully realized on the 1994 album Bewitched. That release added second guitarist Sean Eden and welcomed Velvet Underground alumnus Sterling Morrison, whose playing appears on “Friendly Advice” and “Great Jones Street.” The following year’s Penthouse featured another guest, Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier, who shared vocals with Wareham on a version of Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot’s “Bonnie and Clyde.” Demeski having departed, the band returned in 1997 with Pup Tent.
Elektra parted ways with Luna shortly before the completion of its fifth album, The Days of Our Nights, which finally appeared in the United States on the Jericho label in autumn 1999. The new decade brought further shifts: founding bassist Harwood moved back to New Zealand to raise his daughter, and Britta Phillips, previously of Ben Lee and Ultrababyfat, took his place after joining the group for spring 2000 dates. Early 2001 saw the release of the live album Luna Live, drawn from shows at Washington, D.C.’s 9:30 Club in December 1999 and New York’s Knitting Factory in July 2000.
Recording for the sixth studio album, Romantica, wrapped in late 2001; issued the next spring on Jetset Records, it was produced by Gene Holder and mixed by Dave Fridmann. That same May, Wareham and Phillips released the duet album Avventura, produced by Tony Visconti and also appearing on Jetset.
After declaring their intention to disband, Luna delivered their seventh album, Rendezvous, in 2004 and concluded activities with a farewell tour the following year. Their career was summarized on the 17-track Rhino anthology The Best of Luna, issued in June 2006; the same month brought the digital covers collection Lunafied and the DVD edition of the Matthew Buzzell documentary Tell Me Do You Miss Me.
Wareham and Phillips subsequently contributed to the soundtrack of Noah Baumbach’s The Squid and the Whale and issued a second Dean & Britta album, the Visconti-produced Back Numbers, in 2007; they had also married by that time. In 2010 the pair released 13 Most Beautiful: Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests and toured with an accompanying multimedia program. Wareham issued his first solo album in 2014, after which he and Phillips scored Baumbach’s 2015 film Mistress America. Phillips made her solo debut, Luck or Magic, in 2016.
Luna reconvened in 2017 for the covers album A Sentimental Education and the six-track instrumental EP A Place of Greater Safety, supporting both with dates across Spain and North America.
