DANIEL ROMANO’S OUTFIT
La Luna
YOU’VE CHANGED
8/10
AMERICANA
Album of the month
Mystical prog-country opera from Canadian polymath
IT’S almost impossible to keep track of Daniel Romano. When he’s not publishing collections of poetry or art, the Ontario musician is either recording solo, producing others (most recently Carson McHone’s Still Life) or creating ambient epics under the guise of varianza. To call him prolific feels reductive. In 2020 alone, grounded by the pandemic, he released no fewer than eight albums, either solo or fronting Daniel Romano’s Outfit, including an entire reimagining of Bob Dylan’s In fi d e l s.
La Luna might be his most ambitious project to date. A celestial song cycle in 14 chapters, served in two lengthy parts, it’s a modern psychedelic musical that seeks to address the big stuff: spirituality, God, creation, destiny and the like. The music, lyrics and arrangements are all Romano’s, though his Outfit – chiefly McHone, Julianna Riolino, Roddy Rosetti, David Nardi and brother Ian Romano – helps bring them to life in expansive, polyphonic detail. It’s rich in brass, orchestral strings and massed harmonies, with Romano sharing vocal turns with others.
