Roma di Luna: Press

ROMA DI LUNA
"Casting the Bones"

Transitioning from an acoustic duo to a full band sounds effortless for husband/wife team Alexei and Channy Moon Casselle -- he of gravelly voiced Crescent Moon rapper fame, and she of serene, siren-like singing ability. Their edgy, starry-night country/folk music is nicely filled in with softly plunked banjo, pretty violin and pristine electric guitar parts. But their intimate, evocative songs are still the attraction, along with Channy's uncanny voice, like Margo Timmons mixed with Joanna Newsom.

Perhaps better known as emcee Cresent Moon, Moon Casselle threw a curveball at the indie-rap community back in 2005 by playing a series of acoustic folk shows along with his wife, Channy. Their love of early folk and country music blossomed into Roma di Luna, which has since grown from a duo into a full band, and from farmer’s market background music into one of the Twin Cities’ most compelling acts. Culture Bully’s Kyle “El Guante” Myhre sits down with Alexei Moon Casselle for this week’s installment of Five Questions.

Kyle Myhre: For the people who know you as Crescent Moon, or as one of the guys in Oddjobs or Kill the Vultures, or as Slug’s old hypeman or whatever, let’s talk about Roma di Luna. What drew you to this style of music?

Alexei Moon Casselle: Its purity, the simplicity. For most of my adult life hip hop was pretty much all that I listened to, so when I discovered a style of music that was every bit as soulful and socially aware as hip hop it was very refreshing and humbling at the same time. It was inspiring to learn of bluesmen and folk troubadours armed only with a guitar and their voice going out and taking on industrial empires, stories of man versus machine, hard traveling, women, being broke and drunk. These were things that I could relate to or at least seemed more relevant than the subjects I was used to hearing about in songs.

KM: The soundtracks to Cold Mountain and O Brother Where Art Thou were both pretty big hits, and your music seems to be gaining momentum as well. What is it about early twentieth century roots folk/country that resonates with people today?

AMC: I think it’s the same things that drew me in: pure, simple songs that are easy on the ears. Those are the original American pop songs, the foundation, so it makes sense that there is still an audience for “old-timey” music.

I remember back when I was a kid if someone asked me what kind of music I liked I’d say pretty much anything except country… I found out there’s some badass country music, too! Look at Johnny Cash for example: Dude was famous as hell fifty years ago and today his music is more celebrated than ever. He was making solid records right up until he died. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t get much better than that.

There will always be people who feel alienated by contemporary pop music, too; maybe they feel nostalgia for a music that comes from something familiar and more innocent. That’s the funny thing, though. A lot of those old songs are talking about the same things you’ll hear in today’s music; they just had to hide it better. “Goodnight Irene” sounds like a lullaby but the verses read like a suicide note. A lot of those old blues songs were talking about straight up dirty sex but they’d hide it in metaphor and this was back when singing a song about holding a girl’s hand was controversial.

KM: What can we expect from the new album? Do you have a favorite track? Any overarching themes or motifs?

AMC: I don’t know what to say about the new album other than I hope you listen to it. I’m really proud of it and I think it’s our best recording to date. There’s a pretty wide range of mood and energy. It’s a lot of storytelling; some fictional, some not. We recorded at Crazy Beast Studio (Dosh, Andrew Bird) in NE Minneapolis, with Ben Durrant running the boards and producing the record with us as well as playing electric guitar and other sounds on the record. This album was definitely a full band collaboration, which was really fun since everyone just threw what they wanted to into each track and that was pretty much how we kept it.

KM: Channy’s short guest appearance on the new Atmosphere album (on the song “Puppets”) was one of my favorite musical moments this year. How did that collaboration come about?

AMC: Slug has been very supportive of our band and he must just be a fan of Channy’s singing because he just asked her if she’d come into the studio and try singing on a couple tracks. I think it’s really exciting to hear her in a completely different context outside Roma di Luna. You know Channy always wanted to be an R&B singer, so maybe this’ll start her on a whole new path.

KM: Where can people catch Roma di Luna in the next couple months? The release party is 6/14, but are there any other particularly exciting shows on the horizon?

AMC: We’re gonna be on TV! ‘The Almanac’ show on TPT (Channel 2,17), June 13th at like 7pm. The release party at The Cedar is June 14th with Spaghetti Western String Co. and Tiriti Mundi Flamenco. We’re at the 7th St. Entry with Jeremy Messersmith May 30th, Lee’s Liquor Lounge July 25th and we’ll be at the Triple Rock with Black Blondie on August 15th.

Minnesota meets Appalachia on this debut CD by the husband-and-wife team Alexei and Channy Moon Casselle. The duo’s transporting folk, ripe with all the religious overtones and drama attendant to the genre’s rural forbears, grabs hold of the imagination, carrying you far from home. The album relies on Channy’s haunting vocals, but Alexei steals the show with his rich half-growl verging on a yodel. “Inside the Bells” showcases the best of both their voices, as well as Channy’s violin. Download the upbeat “Bury Me Beneath the Killing Fields” or the plaintive and sometimes chilling “Plenty.”

"Si il existe quelque chose de sacré, le corps humain est sacré" avait dit Walt Whitman.

Dans Find Your Way Home, leur premier enregistrement long playing avec dédicace du prisonnier politique indien Leonard Peltier, le duo Minnesotan Roma Di Luna procède à chaque instant, chaque soupir, chaque sourire, chaque souvenir déchiré, chaque caresse, chaque émission, à la révélation délibérée de l'ensemble des corps comme champ de ralliement. Toutes les vérités affûtées, tranchantes sont bonnes à dire pour estimer, même en peine, la destinée.

Roma Di Luna, duo de tendance folk-country, faisait la manche en 2005 sur le marché fermier de Minneapolis en chantant la mémoire telle qu'Alan Lomax, par exemple, a su la graver. Le couple se compose d'un couple véritable en l'union du guitariste et chanteur résonnant Alexei Moon Casselle (connu aussi sous le nom de Crescent Moon dans les sphères du hip hop local) et de Channy Moon Casselle, chanteuse et violoniste à fleurs de peaux.

Find your way home est le disque dont nous avions besoin après Avalanche de Thea Gilmore. Sculpté par le temps, par le vent, porté par une incroyable nudité qui fait face à l'ensemble de ce que nous sommes en toutes simplicités.

Dans "Ghost Dance", Channy Moon Casselle chante "Vous ne pouvez arrêter ma danse des fantômes, ni décolorer mon coeur, je danserai en prison, je danserai dans le noir". Ecouter Find your way home est une expérience intense, le réécouter un acte d'amour de plus en plus précis à chaque écoute, comme si ces voix, si frontalières et si frontales, ces voix qui savent l'être, ces voix qui lisent, nous étaient petit à petit léguées pour mieux nous déceler.

Evoking an old-timey Americana vibe riddled with scary hints of neo-Gothic mayhem, Roma di Luna play sparse tunes that squirm and fret under thriving uncertainty. The husband-and-wife duo of Alexei and Channy Moon Casselle etch tales of harrowing brittleness on their debut, Find Your Way Home, Channy in particular singing with a fractured radiance that sometimes seems like the bittersweet murmuring of ghosts.

St. Paul, Minn. — Roma di Luna is releasing their third studio album, "Casting the Bones" and it has a new feel. The sound of the local duo has transformed over the past months by adding the influence of other musicians and friends. According to the husband-wife team of Alexei and Channy Moon Casselle, it was a "now or never" scenario: Three of the band members were about to become parents - Alexei and Channy are among the expecting parents- and they wanted to experiment with the larger group sound before the big event(s).

Songs performed: "The Romance of Wolves," and "Trouble Down the Road"

Go to link and listen to clips of the performance!

Top 25 Local Albums of 2007:

#6- Roma di Luna, Find Your Way Home

Husband-and-Wife duo Alexei and Channy Moon Casselle understand the value of simplicity. Though the sound is a little fuller and richer on Find Your Way Home than last year's debut EP Face of My Friends, it's just enough to accentuate the spare, haunting beauty of their music, a slightly modernized spin on traditional early-20th-century folk- the darker, more doom-laden side of that canon. Each of the Casselles writes and sings, and their talents complement each other well: Alexei, who performs with hip-hop-noir duo Kill the Vultures, brings an earnest growl of Roma, while Channy's beautiful, frail-sounding warble cuts through the songs like a winter wind.

Volume 43 Issue 50

Roma di Luna a tenu ses promesses. "Find Your Way Home" est tout à fait dans la lignée de ce qu'Alexei et Channy Moon Casselle avaient proposé un an plus tôt sur l'excellent "Face of My Friends". A l'extrême opposé de ses aventures passées avec Oddjobs ou plus récentes avec Kill the Vultures, celui dont le nom de rappeur est Crescent Moon a troqué son hip hop contre un folk nu et sans âge joué en compagnie de sa femme, et c'est tout bonnement magnifique. Voix superbe de la chanteuse, dépouillement extrême des compositions, absence presque totale de percussions, omniprésence d'une guitare sèche secondée par un violon et par quelques autres instruments très discrets (banjo, accordéon), récits de peines et de désespoir : les ingrédients sont les mêmes que sur le EP annonciateur, et la réussite presque égale. Tout juste ce disque plus long se montre-t-il légèrement moins intense que le précédent, tout juste sa puissance s'est-elle quelque peu diluée.

Les principales évolutions depuis "Face of My Friends" sont la plus grande présence d'Alexei au chant et quelques moments plus fermement ancrés dans le folklore traditionnel, comme cette sorte de gigue au violon en introduction de l'a capella "Tree of Life" ou le refrain de "Burry me Beneath the Killers Field". Mais dans l'ensemble, tout est pareil. Comme la première sortie du duo, "Find Your Way Home" s'ouvre sur une grande chanson, avec ce "Devil Walks" où la guitare d'Alexei et la voix de Channy Moon s'accompagnent de très légères notes de banjo, avant que ne survienne un somptueux final au violon. Comme sur "Face of My Friends", la plupart des morceaux sont déchirants de beauté, de ce "Plenty" où s'entend la seule guitare électrique de l'album au lumineux "Inside the Bells" où les époux chantent de concert, en passant par la complainte de "No Child of My Own". Sans oublier la formidable reprise du "In the Aeroplane, Over the Sea" de Neutral Milk Hotel qui clôt le disque dans l'un de ses moments les plus forts, preuve ultime de la réussite de cette étonnante reconversion entreprise par Crescent Moon avec l'aide de sa belle.

Sylvain Bertot

There is a scene in the film Once that finds the main characters seated at a piano, discovering each other through music and sharing a deeply personal moment by fumbling through a song and feeling out each other's voices. It's the kind of immediate intimacy that most of us can only imagine or crave from a distance, and it makes the idea of lovers creating art insanely interesting to hopeless romantics like myself. So when I heard that husband and wife duo Roma di Luna were preparing to release their first full album, Find Your Way Home, I jumped at the chance to learn more about the inner workings of a married couple sharing a creative outlet.

"I think it inspires the work," says Channy, her delicate features relaxing into an easy smile. "It can get tense, but it's like a different role almost. It's very intertwined, it's much like a band mate, but there's a little more forgiveness because you love the person."

Though the two practice together, they explain that most of the songwriting is done individually. "When we started out, we tried to write together," starts Alexei, and Channy steps in to finish his sentence. "We attempted that," she giggles. "We wrote one song together about a gypsy that broke my heart, or something..."

"It didn't work out so well," he finishes. "But it was still collaborative in the sense that she was getting comfortable with the guitar chords, and I would try to help her find out what chords went where and help her arrange stuff."

Even though their creative process doesn't play out quite as effortlessly as in the movies, there is still an aura of other-worldly romance surrounding the songs on Find Your Way Home. Similar to last year's enchanting EP, Face of My Friends, which found it's way to the top of many local music fan's year end lists, the album is a collection of vulnerable, sparse and haunting moments. Unlike most contemporary roots musicians, who tend toward male-female harmonies and duets, Channy and Alexei take turns singing the songs solo over a delicate arrangement of instruments. It gives the songs an immediacy that would fade with additional layers, while maintaining a surprisingly lush and haunting ambiance.

The album was produced by Ben Durrant at Crazy Beast Studio, and includes a surprisingly long list of guest musicians (including James Buckley, Durrant, J.G. Everest, Michael Rossetto, Steve Yasgar), but the album still retains the intimacy of a duo creating music together.

"We want to stay true to that folk influence," says Alexei. "It's really just a documentation of the songs we had at the time. It sounds very obvious, but I want to keep it like that. Recording, it's an enigma to me, and I don't want to invest too much time into it. I know I will go insane if I try to sit down and become one of those people that tries to make it too perfect. A philosophy that we both share musicially seems to be: just get the point across. Get the mood across. And if that's good enough, then that's a good take."

"There are parts of the album where I'm like, ohh, that's a little off," admits Channy, "maybe a little out of tune, but it conveyed the emotion of the song. That has to be there. That's the priority for us."

Of course, the bare-bones style of early 20th Century folk music that Roma di Luna embraces could fall flat in the wrong hands. Luckily for Channy and Alexei, it's their flaws that make them even more endearing. An immensely talented vocalist, Channy's moans, sighs and yelps are what makes her melodies so captivating; while Alexei, who is best known for a dramatically different role as local hip hop MC Crescent Moon, has a deep, quivering voice that adds a dark and steady twist. True to form, there is throat-clearing, giggling, and whispered words of encouragement sprinkled throughout the songs, creating the feel of a basement recording session among friends.

Loosely translated, the words Roma di Luna conjure up images of jangling gypsies dancing in the moonlight, banding together to trade goods and songs on a warm summer night. If their new album is any indication, Roma di Luna's CD release show will be nothing short of a hootenanny.

It's a mystery to me how a great musical venue like the Cedar can be seasonal. For whatever reason, the eclectic Cedar Cultural Center has routinely taken summers off, leaving Twin Cities roots- and international-music enthusiasts eagerly awaiting the autumnal toll of sweet September. This year, as a thank-you to their supportive community, the Cedar opens its doors with a stellar kickoff event featuring a free night of music from some of the area's finest emerging artists. Roma Di Luna, the husband-and-wife duo of Alexei (a.k.a. Crescent Moon, from hip-hop projects Oddjobs and Kill the Vultures) and Channy Moon Caselle, play stark acoustic folk originals with a tranquil American gothic beauty. Celebrating the release of their first full-length CD, Find Your Way Home, the Caselles promise to bring more to the show than two voices, a violin, and an old wooden six-string usually add up to. With the MMA's reigning "Female Vocalist of the Year," JoAnna James. All ages.

Of all the Twin Cities musicians who play in two or more bands, probably none can claim to make a sharper 180-turn between his acts than Alexei Moon Casselle.
"The gigs have been hard to get used to," Casselle said about his new-ish guitar/violin duo Roma di Luna, which he formed with his wife, Channy Moon Casselle.

"A lot of its power comes from the quietness. That's very different from what I'm used to."

Before Roma di Luna, he was better known by his rapper name, Crescent Moon. It's the moniker he used in Oddjobs, the hip-hop group he formed with four pals just out of high school. It's also what Slug always called him onstage with Atmosphere, with whom he frequently tours as the group's hype-man/backup MC (but not this fall).

Crescent Moon is also the name he still uses in Kill the Vultures, his abrasive, harrowing, schizophrenically noisy hip-hop duo with fellow Oddjobs alum Anatomy (Stephen Lewis). If Tom Waits was into rap, the Vultures could be his favorite group.

Waits might find more to like in Roma di Luna, though. Alexei and Channy created their rustic, semirootsy, sometimes uncomfortably intimate folk act after they got married in a quick whir of romance -- preceded by years of friendship -- in June 2005.

"We were high-school sweethearts, but then we sort of went our different ways," Channy recounted over drinks last week, completely understating their separate paths.

She worked at an orphanage in Cambodia through Americorps after high school (Minneapolis South). He and Oddjobs sought their big break by moving to New York and Berkeley, Calif.

While in New York, Alexei started playing and songwriting with a borrowed acoustic guitar (P.O.S. later bought him a six-string as a birthday present). He sought solace in the music, and in Channy.

"I sent her a tape with some songs," he said with an embarrassed smirk. "I was trying to impress her and get her back."

Channy came from a folk/Americana past and was classically trained on violin. Once married, the couple somehow found a way to also wed their two musical backgrounds.

"It wasn't a case of, 'Let's start a band and make records,'" Alexei explained. "Music was already a big part of both our lives, so it just sort of happened naturally. I never would've guessed that two years later, we'd already be putting out our second CD."

That second album, "Find Your Way Home," proves that Roma di Luna is much more than just a hobby for the young newlyweds, both 26, to enjoy on weekends. On Thursday, they headline the Cedar Cultural Center's free season kickoff show, which doubles as their CD-release party.

Produced by Ben Durrant (soon after he finished Andrew Bird's acclaimed new album), the new disc features a lot of eerie ambience and rustic instrumentation, which suits the hallowed-sounding songs. However romantic the duo's origins, these songs are anything but lovey-dovey.

One tune is about north Minneapolis violence ("The Devil Walks"). Another is about barren women ("No Child of My Own"). Both singers explore their American Indian roots in the rousing sing-along "Bury Me (Beneath the Killing Fields)." And Alexei bravely revisits his strained relationship with his father in the title track, a topic he has also hit on in Kill the Vultures.

In fact, the lyrics on "Find Your Way Home" would be at home among Alexei's hip-hop albums.

"Most of Alexei's songs are very dark, and a lot of them are about downtrodden, oppressed people," Channy said. Alexei had a simpler description: "Like everything else, rap can be traced back to the blues."

While he's better-known, Channy is the real star of Roma di Luna. She has a riveting voice, at once sirenlike and sweet but also fragile and haunted-sounding. It's a sharp contrast to his booming, dry, leathery voice.

"I'm still pretty uncomfortable about singing," Alexei admitted, but then he shrugged off the nerves.

"It feels a lot more important to me than, say, rapping about whack MCs."

Husband and wife duo Alexei and Channy Moon evoke all that’s good and tender about the American folk tradition over the disc’s seven tracks. Channy is gifted with a voice that’s at once unique and familiar, simultaneously complex and comforting. It has none of the easy contours you’ve come to expect from coffeehouse chanteuses, falling more into the beguiling range of Jolie Holland. Channy teases a remarkable range of emotion out of it, from the desperate and pleading “Brother” to the warm and welcoming “The Face of My Friends.” Guitar (courtesy of Alexei) and violin (courtesy of Channy) form the bedrock of the sound, and additional instrumental colors are kept to an aboslute minimum: a tambourine here, a bass there and that’s pretty much it. The simplicity of the arrangements lets the melodies shine through.

Can't beat this deal: Two of the best new female vocalists in town for the price of none. Roma di Luna is best known as an old-timey side project of Kill the Vultures' Crescent Moon, but it's his wife Channy Casselle and her haunting backwater singing that bring audiences to their knees.

Chris Bahn, the Onion Twin Cities editor

Albums

1. P.O.S., "Audition" (Rhymesayers)

2. Dosh, "The Lost Take" (Anticon)

3. Mark Mallman, "Between The Devil And Middle C" (Badman Records)

4. Kill The Vultures, "The Careless Flame" (Locust/Jib Door)

5. The Alarmists, "A Detail Of Soldiers" (self-released)

6. Mike Gunther & His Restless Souls, "Burn It Down For The Nails" (Heart Of A Champion)

7. Belles Of Skin City, "You Do The Company Proud" (Totally Gross National Product)

8. Aviette, "Until We Hear From Dave" (Draw Fire Records)

9. Roma di Luna, "Face Of My Friends" (self-released)

10. Tim O'Reagan, "Tim O'Reagan" (Lost Highway)

Songs

1. P.O.S., "Stand Up (Let's Get Murdered)"

2. Roma di Luna, "These Tears Ain't Mine"

3. Mason Jennings, "If You Need A Reason"

4. Martin Dosh, "Um, Circles And Squares"

5. The Alarmists, "Good Advice"

9. Roma di Luna, Face Of My Friends (self-released): Kill The Vultures’ MC Crescent Moon, aka Alexei Casselle, shows his impressive range in this folk duo he shares with his wife, singer and violinist Channy Moon Casselle. The focus here is on sublimely sad songs like “These Tears Ain’t Mine” and “Don’t Take My Baby To War,” anchored by the hauntingly emotive Channy.

Channy Casselle..sings like a more serene Kristin Hersh or a less-hippie Edie Brickell. Together, the happy couple offer a less-than-happy mix of haunting dirges and candlelight ballads on their seven-song CD, "Face of My Friends," right behind Haley Bonar's "Lure the Fox" as this year's prettiest local disc.

The surprise of this newer old-timey duo, with fiddle-playing wife Channy Moon, is her voice, a chalky and broken-sounding instrument that's as arresting in its way as Jolie Holland's..another sign that the weird-roots scene here and in Duluth is among the country's richest.

I’m digging the MySpace songs by new old-timey duo Roma di Luna, featuring Crescent Moon of Kill the Vultures/Oddjobs on guitar. With those guys, the Roe family Singers, and all the Duluth roots bands, there seems to be a genuine movement underway, though maybe it was there all along and I never noticed before.

Il n’y a pas plus dissemblables que les deux derniers disques sortis par Alexei Casselle, le dernier Kill The Vultures et celui de Roma Di Luna. Mais écoutés l’un à la suite de l’autre, il n’y a pas meilleur cet hiver.

Alexei Casselle est un homme plein de ressources. Pendant des années, il a été membre d’Oddjobs, l’un des groupes les plus emblématiques de l’underground hip hop du Midwest, avant de réinventer le rap tout entier au sein de Kill The Vultures et de livrer avec The Careless Flame l’un des disques les plus singuliers et les plus recommandables de l’an passé. Mais celui qui se fait appeler Crescent Moon quand il rappe ne s’arrête pas là. Il ne se limite pas au registre hip hop, fut-il coloré de punk et de jazz comme chez Kill The Vultures. En parallèle, il est le guitariste de Roma Di Luna, un duo folk dont l’autre membre, chanteuse et violoniste de formation classique, n’est ni plus ni moins que sa propre femme, Channy Moon Casselle. Et le disque que le couple vient de sortir, Face of my Friends, n'a rien à envier à The Careless Flame.

Roma Di Luna puise loin, dans une tradition folk américaine vieille de plus d'un siècle. Limitée à deux protagonistes et à des instruments rudimentaires, leur musique est retenue, dépouillée et sans âge. Composé exclusivement d’un violon, d’une guitare acoustique et de la voix hantée de la chanteuse (voire de celle d’Alexei Casselle lui-même, qui s’essaye au chant, et pas trop mal, sur "The Blade in your Back"), le son est à l’exact opposé du rap. Il n’y a que des mélodies étirées, et pas la moindre percussion pour marquer le rythme, si ce n’est le tambourin las de "Before I Die" et les maigres handclaps d’un "The Face of my Friends" presque enjoué. Cependant, dans les complaintes tragiques de Channy Casselle, dans ses chants de désespoir, apparaît la même déchirure que chez Kill The Vultures, la même beauté sèche et abrasive qui prend à la gorge.

The Careless Flame et Face of my Friends évoluent dans deux univers distincts, mais ce sont les deux faces de la même médaille. D’une même durée, à la minute près, ces deux disques très courts provoquent un effet semblable. L’un comme l’autre commence par son titre le plus intense, ici le magnifique "Before I Die", d’une puissance telle que la suite paraît injustement fade. Et pourtant, les plages suivantes sont tout aussi bonnes, par exemple "Brother", ce "The Blade in your Back" où Alexei le chanteur retient à grand peine Crescent Moon le rappeur, ou le splendide morceau final "Ice Cold Body", quand la magnifique voix à la fois fragile et sans faille de Channy Casselle ne s’entend plus que de loin, comme si elle était déjà partie. Il n’y a pas plus dissemblables que les deux derniers disques d’Alexei Casselle. Mais écoutés l’un à la suite de l’autre, il n’y avait rien de meilleur en cette fin 2006.

I was lucky enough to have my opinions solicited by Chris R. from the Star Tribune for his critic's best-of-list this year. Of course all those opinions are rendered pointless now because between the time I submitted my choices and the end of the year, I purchased the Roma Di Luna album, The Face of My Friends.

If I could change my picks, this would be my album of the year. A folk duo that captures with the perfect blend of haunting vocals, barely-there guitar and occasional fits of fiddle, they capture an ethereal moment in time of a strictly American style of music.

The song "Don't Take My Baby to War" would be my song of the year. The best anti-war song I've heard in a long time.

Don't take my baby
Don't take my love
Don't take my baby

Gather your men around there's a draft coming to town
Leave tonight or else you better bury them underground
Don't take my baby to war

Choke on the oil you need/ to power that engine of sin
If you believe in these battles/ then why aren't you out there with them?

He has kissed me goodbye
He has no fear of giving his life
But I carved my heart in his hand
So when they find him they'll know he's mine
Don't take my baby to war

Don't take my baby
Don't take my love
Don't take my baby to war

“The intimate space that Isabella’s presents in
the cozy lower lounge of the Ryan House
seems just made for the spare, haunting music
of Roma di Luna. Or maybe it’s the other
way around. Regardless, we all get a chance
to see if that speculation proves true as the
Minneapolis duo is set to perform at
Isabella’s, Friday, August 17.
Husband and wife Alexei and Channy
Moon Casselle co-write and perform
original folk and country that sounds
both contemporary and like something
from the early 20th century at
the same time. Simple, even stark instrumentation
that includes guitar and
violin serve as the setting for Channy’s
haunting vocals – dark, laid-bare but
soothing and always beautiful. The
austere arrangements serve to center
the focus on the melodies, the sweetly
melancholic lyrics and the voice that
carries them so gently.
Alexei, who mostly handles guitar
duties also sings in his own very
emotive style, which makes it even
more surprising to learn that his
regular gig is as an MC in the underground
hip-hop scene! Known
as Crescent Moon as a former member
of the Oddjobs, he currently is a
member of Minneapolis crew Kill the Vultures.
Together with Channy, a classically trained
violinist and bluegrass fiddle player,
they create the sad and beautiful sound of
Roma di Luna. Get yourself a drink and turn
the lights down low.”