Rating-4 out of 5
Spencer Krug must be held up in the studio with Lil Wayne. Dude must be sipping on the Tussin enhanced "purple drink" because his output is strictly ridiculous. Krug is a member of one "major" group (Wolf Parade), has his "side project" (Sunset Rubdown), and another "contributing" project (Swan Lake). Beside Bradford Cox, there isn't a guy who is more prolific and consistently good than Krug.
So it should be no surprise that his new endeavor, Moonface, is on par with his other projects. His first EP, Dreamland: Marimba and Shit Drums, pulls no surprise punches. Supposedly inspired by Spencer's admiration for the marimba, this one-song EP clocks in at an epic twenty minutes. It is based primarily on the marimba and, indeed, contain "shitty" programmed drums to accompany the music. The physical copy of the record will contain Krug's "Dream Journal", his dreams being the lyric foundation for the EP.
But what is so awe-inspiring about the record is the ability it has to avoid redundancy and predictability. At twenty minutes, any song has the chance of becoming stale. Twenty minutes of one instrument can be excruciating. But Krug keeps things fresh, finding the right opportunities to switch tempo and add the so-called shitty drums. The listener is never quite sure where the track will go next and even on the fourth listen in the span of two days, I was still pleasantly surprised by the little details.
But Krug's strongest point has always been his lyrics. Never afraid to lose himself in fantasy in order to express his frustration with normalcy, he has really outdone himself with this one. Building an "Odyssey" like arch, our narrator ventures into a dreamland with his love. But somewhere along the way he betrays her. "I was lying around with chameleons/I was hanging around with bitches" Krug laments, knowing well of his wrongs. Forced away and deemed lost, he has to watch his lover fall victim to countless suitors. But unlike Homer's "Odyssey" where Odysseus winds up slaying the suitors to take back his home and wife, Krug's narrator seems lost forever. He is left to "make hissing noises with my mouth", only allowed to see darkness that he imposed upon himself. Pretty deep stuff for what many would deem a "throwaway record."
Unlike many others who use productivity as a means to keep busy, Krug uses it as a way to expose his personality. This EP is at its prettiest when he allows himself to be himself. "I'll prove how much I love you with this handstand/I can breathe under the water/I can hear your muffled laughter/I can feel you coming through the walls." His devotion, and this EP, is an atonement to what a special character Krug really is.
Physical Copy is available 1/26/09. Digital copy available now: https://scdistribution.com/moonface (donations accepted)
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