Ava Luna – “Centerline”
Ava Luna make music with a collectivist spirit. All of the band’s members helm creative projects on the side, and when they get together to write as a group, collaboration is paramount to their process. Carlos Hernandez, Becca Kauffman, and Felicia Douglass are the band’s three rotating lead singers, and they all front music projects independent of one another; Douglass performs with the pop group Gemma, Hernandez with his new project Nadine, and Kauffman is known around town as the performance artist and singer Jennifer Vanilla.
Ava Luna’s forthcoming album, Moon 2, will be out in September. It follows their stellar 2015 album Infinite House, and we’ve already heard the Douglass-led, funk adjacent single “Deli Run.” We’re premiering the album’s second New Wave inspired single, “Centerline,” which was co-written by Kauffman and Douglass and features all three singers on vocals, led by Kauffman.
“Centerline is an ode to the moment of epiphany right before a breakup. It’s a snapshot of personal clarity in which a woman decidedly steps out of a disempowering relationship to reclaim the space and agency that is rightfully hers,” Kauffman writes. “The surreal choral sample at the beginning is derived from a cassette tape of enchanted New England ‘women’s music’ chants and is a conceptual backbone to this song. Let Centerline be the power anthem you sing to yourself as you climb back to the top of the mountain and declare yourself worthy of being front and center.”
“Centerline” leads with a squiggly, extraterrestrial synth that makes Kauffman’s voice sound like a dispatch from some far away planet. “Wandered to the side, found/ Centerpieces bound to me I’m not satisfied,” she sings right before Hernandez jumps in with a countermelody. Douglass chimes in every now and then to accentuate certain words, further elevating the song’s playful mood.
Listen to “Centerline” below.
TOUR DATES:
09/05 New Haven, CT @ Cafe Nine
09/06 Portland, ME @ Apohadian Theater
09/07 Boston, MA @ Great Scott
09/08 Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
09/09 Washington, D.C. @ DC9
09/10 Richmond, VA @ Gallery 5
09/11 Raleigh, NC @ King’s Barcade
09/12 Atlanta, GA @ 529
09/13 Knoxville, TN @ Pilot Light
09/14 Cincinatti, OH @ MOTR Pub
09/15 Indianapolis, IN @ Pioneer
09/16 Chicago, IL @ The Hideout
09/18 Columbus, OH @ Spacebar
09/19 Lakewood, OH @ Mahall’s 20 Lanes
09/20 Baltimore, MD @ Metro Gallery
09/21 Philadelphia, PA @ PhilMOCA
Moon 2 is out 9/7 via Western Vinyl.
