Luna

Indie-rock icon Dean Wareham boasts not one but two revered bands on his résumé. If his first, Galaxie 500, helped to define the reverb-saturated melancholy of late-’80s dream pop, then his follow-up project, Luna, came to epitomize the offbeat songcraft popular in the ’90s alt-rock boom. Formed in New York in 1991 with former members of The Chills and The Feelies, Luna initially played a more streamlined version of the Velvet Underground-informed sound associated with Wareham’s previous group. However, on subsequent releases, including 1994’s Bewitched and 1995’s Penthouse, Luna increasingly wrap Wareham’s subdued warble and quirky tales in garage-rock fuzz, psych-pop hooks, and dusty textures that call to mind the windswept expanses of the American Southwest. With the band calling it quits in 2005, Wareham and bassist Britta Phillips carried on as a duo. But Luna would spring back to life for 2017’s A Sentimental Education, an assortment of classic rock, post-punk, and prog covers filtered through Wareham’s singularly dreamy vision.