ARTHUR MOON MAJESTICALLY RULED THE SULTAN ROOM

Lora-Faye Åshuvud, better known by the moniker Arthur Moon, is the Queen of the Brooklyn synthy dance scene, and she and her band swept through the relatively new Bushwick spot called The Sultan Room and proceeded to conquer our collective hearts. It was my first time at this venue, and it was a brilliantly designed, enchantingly colorful, and invitingly clean scene for a dance revolution party as I could have ever hoped. They got the place surprisingly packed with spellbound fans for a Tuesday night, which is by no means is an easy task, and they ruled the room with a commanding synth sway.

Lau Noah bewitched the audience with an opening solo set of original tunes sung in her native Spanish tongue. She often spoke longingly of her homeland of Spain, but also lovingly embraced her home as of the last several years right here in NYC. Her fondness of Brooklyn was quite endearing, and as an immigrant herself, she urged for love for the refugees and newcomers in this hateful political and social environment we live in presently. She bewitched the audience as she crooned and strummed on her guitar while perched cross-legged up high on a towering stool and sang with an angelic accent and radiated a divine aura. She is quite captivating to see live and I can’t wait to experience her again.

Lau Noah

Åshuvud has a masterful presence on the stage, as her songs carry a heavy inner turmoil. She often seems to glide over the ground as she beams with energy and radiates warmth. She embraces her sexuality, but she also drops all assumptions and defining lines within queering music and challenges classifications and questions gender roles. She is a force to be reckoned with, yet this masterful woman is tender and broken as any of the rest of us, as she humanizes the dualism that lies within in us all.

Arthur Moon

There is a strong late 90’s Bjork presence in her music, as she embraces an unpredictable surreal wackiness akin to tUnE-yArDs or even the synthy otherworld of classic 80’s Laurie Anderson, but her brand of experimentation deftly defies explanation. Just when you think you’ve wrapped your head around one song, she wraps another one around your noggin a squeezes like a slithering boa. The stage set of The Sultan Room was mind-bending enough, but she also brought along some very cool custom lighting instruments with geometric shapes dispersed around the stage that added to the abstract attitude of the show. The expansive full band gave her music a greater scope and funkier feel what was on her recently released self-titled debut album, especially on songs like the groovy “Homonormo” that seemed to get the whole crowd in the groove.