#27 on the 2011 Musical Bacon Calendar

Organ Music Not Virbraphone Like I’d Hoped by Moonface

Spencer Krug is not for everyone. The prolific musician is the key component to many bands you may have heard of, such as Wolf Parade, Sunset Rubdown, and Swan Lake. But as the “weird one” in these bands, a lot of people are put off by his voice, his lyrics, his style. Thankfully, his distinctive persona is exactly perfect for me.

Lately, Krug has been concentrating on his solo work, under the name Moonface. Relying almost entirely on electronic drums, marimba/marimba-like synth, and Krug’s voice, Moonface has more in common with Keyboard Cat than he does with the indie rock world. The first Moonface release was Dreamland EP: Marimba & Shit Drums, a 20-minute EP with only one song, released in 2010. Organ Music Not Vibraphone Like I’d Hoped is a 5-song album that builds on what was started in the EP, this time with the addition of the organ (but not a vibraphone, obviously). It has Krug’s distinctive voice built on top of repetitive, droning electronic melodies, each one building to a crescendo of noise that make the album an adventure in listening.

I had the pleasure of seeing Krug perform as Moonface earlier this year at an underattended show at the Crocodile. As I wrote of Organ Music:

Moonface is a bit of an under-the-radar project for Krug,¹ as noted by the sparse crowd that gathered at the Crocodile Saturday night for his show. Either the new album isn’t achieving the level of acceptance that Krug’s other projects have, or — my preferred assumption — it just hasn’t yet reached his core audience.

Well, I’d like to ammend that statement now by saying that, just maybe, the album has reached his core audience, but his core audience just isn’t as big as I expected it to be. And that’s perfectly fine. I’ll happily attend small shows at small venues with small crowds. Feels like he’s sitting in my living room, playing exactly what I want to hear.

__________________________________________

28. Heavy Boots & Underwoods by Ben Fisher
29. The Rip Tide by Beirut
30. Collapse Into Now by R.E.M.
31. I Am Very Far by Okkervil River

The video above is a fan-created video for the song “Fast Peter.” To my knowledge, not a single artist-approved video has been released for any Moonface song. ↩