With their first new music since 2004’s Rendezvous, the master Lou Reed disciples in Luna return to one of their strengths: covers. A Sentimental Education finds the quartet—Dean Wareham, Britta Phillips, Sean Eden and Lee Wall—tackling mostly obscurities by the likes of Yes, Bob Dylan, Rolling Stones, Mercury Rev and Fleetwood Mac. Simultaneously released companion piece A Place Of Greater Safety EP is all-original, however, though the six songs are instrumentals. Luna will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.
Wareham: Tasteful guitarist Bruce Langhorne passed away this year. He grew up in Harlem and lost a couple fingers in an accident as child. Ordinarily, this would be an impediment to a guitar player, but it worked out just fine; Langhorne would never become a shredder but instead developed his own rhythmic and chordal style. His delicate playing is the highlight of my favorite Dylan songs: the alternate take of “She Belongs To Me,” “Corrina Corrina” and “Mr Tambourine Man,” which was named for him. The story is that Langhorne played a large Turkish tambourine in studio and Dylan started calling him “Mr Tambourine Man” and wrote a song around it. Langhorne played with a lot of other folk artists, too, notably Richard and Mimi Farina, and he wrote a beautiful film score for Peter Fonda’s The Hired Hand.
