I say “White boy soul”, you say “Justin Timberlake.” I say “White Boy R&B” You say “Color Me Badd.” I glare at you, think for a minute and say “NuSoul Artlectro; Talking Heads meets Erol Alkan meets Stax records meets a whole bunch of bullshit terms I just came up with to try and explain to you what this band is.”

You say “Ava Luna.”

Thank god, you know about them, because it feels like early Christianity where we have to make symbols in the sand to determine if it’s safe to talk here.

Ava Luna is a unique band, even in a city full of unique bands. The release of the Services EP earlier this year gives us a four-song glimpse into their world where they blend many familiar musical styles into something new that makes you recalibrate your perception of the original. Soul, Dance, R&B, Electro, Techno, Art Rock, Noise Rock, Rock Rock all come together like some condensed demented record collection like they couldn’t decide what they wanted to play most so they play it all. A cappella harmonies, piano vamps, hollow synthbass, herky-jerk rhythms, phrases that stop and build and collapse at the whims of the band rather than as laid out in the dusty grimoires of pop structure.

I downloaded Services on a whim and was immediately smitten. Devouring each song with the enthusiasm of new crush. My math binder is filled with flowery practice signatures of “Mrs. Eric Luna,” I want to make it a mixtape, but I know that Ava Luna would already have the songs.

I’ve missed every chance to see Ava Luna live until last night, where they played a free show at Union Pool with Air Waves, Total Slacker and Your Nature and the night was one of revelations and familiarities.

I walked in on Your Nature and immediately hated it. There was a guitarist bouncing notes run through too many effects while harmonizing vocals with the lead singer, whose the lead guitar walked through some tragic scale, the bassist hold his instrument all wrong, and the drummer looked like J Mascis in a tie-dyed shirt. I almost walked out the door to go read.

I was like “Great. Another one of these.” Faux psychedelica through the prism of indie rock.

That song ended, but I didn’t have anywhere else to go, so I stayed. The next song began and I found myself no longer in Union Pool’s small back room. I was traveling through space on my robot dragon flanked by the astroknights of my order in service to King Metal Hurlant as we flew into battle against the hellspawn of horrible clone armies of P4k.

Melodies soared, and coming together and braking apart like complex maneuvers, voices call to one another, relaying their location across the musical spectrum that the other may find it and join it briefly before parting to complete its own musical tangent.

It was frankly, beautiful. It was like a weird cross section of pre-New School British Metal, psychedelic prog rock, but stripped of the pretenses of Art focusing instead on making each individual song great instead of trying to build a legacy. It was less Tarkus and more Vanilla Fudge but played through with knowledge of the history of genre rather than the pioneers who were fumbling in the darkness to express their ideas.

It was grand, epic, sweeping in scope yet also thankfully short, each facet of the gem that was Your Nature’s performance did not overstay its welcome. See this band. If you can not see this band, download their self-titled EP from their website. Turn out the lights, close your eyes and turn it up. We astroknights need all your help to beat back the menace that plagues us!

The second band Total Slacker did not belong on stage. The guitarist / lead singer missed his own cues, the drummer’s time kept slipping and his patterns seemed to be modeled off Rock Band on Easy, the bassist kept fudging notes. I can understand one aspect of a band not having a good night, but this? This is not even worth discussing further.

Air Waves was next and it was great to once more hear Nicole Schneit’s near monotone voice and the same familiar songs. When I saw her at Whartscape a few years ago, it was a great surprise, to have this earnest singer-songwriter tucked into the middle of a million Baltimore art school bands. Her music is deceptively simple, hidden in her voice is the kind of emotion that many Americana acts wish they could summon. Every song of hers is soft, as though you were catching a phantom radio station singing haunted songs about better times while you drove as fast as you dared away from your pains on a dark lonely road.

For the first time in what seems like forever, Air Waves had new music for sale. A 7” and compilation CD but each time I went to go buy one, no one in the band was at the table. Alas. Nicole and the rest of the band have many shows coming up, and it will most certainly be worth seeing them again, if only to grab this new music.

Ava Luna is a big band. It’s a production. It’s got a drummer, bassist, keyboardist, lead singer and three women providing backing vocals. It’s doesn’t seem like a lot until you see them try to fit on a stage the size of a few desks hastily pushed together.

Starting with “Won’t You Be Mine,” a short sketch of a song that is nearly all vocals with sparse, nearly African, percussion kept by stomps and claps that tears into a short vamping frenzy that ends nearly as soon as it begins. And the clapping starts, the packed room is there for Ava Luna. It’s not a bunch of bored people in a bar on a Tuesday. It’s the faithful, who’ve come out for this act. The lead, Carlos seems almost embarrassed by the turn out, the cheers, the clapping. He comes across embarrassed by the success and wishing we would shut up so he could get on with it.

Live, Ava Luna nearly without peer. Everyone is in constant movement , manning the parts that make the whole. Carlos is alternately propelled and dragged by the rhythms of the music, as he dances around taken like priest by the music, as he sweats screams and slams keys trying to save our souls.

The set list was long, playing all of the Services EP, and dipping into their back catalog to play an amazing song “about finding death at the bottom of a well” and epic, three part song that twisted and turned like roots trying to steal life from the ground itself.

The vocal harmonization of Felicia Douglass, Becca Kauffman, and Anna Sian was on point providing near perfect timing with little note slippage. The drumming Alex Smith was great, providing the synchronized and complex beat pattern a human softness, and though the synthbass often drowned out Ethan Bassford’s playing, it was always very capable.

I don’t know what I can say. Ava Luna is unique right now. I’m not hearing anything else like it in the city. Not in the dance area, not in the indie rock area. The only other place I can hear anything like this is in the Gordon Voidwell family of artists. It’s not boring. It’s not soulless. I don’t really know what else to tell you.

Download their music, and go see them live. They perform this Friday for free @ South Street Seaport before vanishing down South to play some shows in DC and Baltimore before coming home and playing Shea Stadium on May 7th, which is where I’ll most likely see them next.