Roma di Luna - Casting the Bones

Official album art, courtesy of Google Image Search

I fall more and more in love with this band, the more I listen to them. Usually, I don't want to go too much into band history in these album reviews, but I think it's story time.

Roma di Luna was founded by a husband and wife duo, Alexei Casselle, a local Minneapolis rapper, and Channy Moon Casselle, a classically trained violinist. They started this band as a wedding gift to each other, and it quickly developed into a deep study of traditional folk music. They started out making money by busking on street corners, learning and playing dustbowl folk and gypsy songs.

Somewhere along the way, the magic started to happen. They started writing songs--mostly to each other. Their roots began to show through, with songs featuring both the traditional duende of gypsy folk music--the strong emotion portrayed by the singer, which makes gypsy music so strong and charismatic--as well as thematic elements noticeable in the music of Crescent Moon, Alexei's rapper moniker. They managed to fuse all of these elements into a unique style, with haunting vocals by Channey Moon, classical violin and folk guitar melodies, and sweet and subtle baselines to bring all of the music together.