Moonface - Julia with Blue Jeans On
Jagjaguar, 2013
Spencer Krug is one of my guys. His forever unsettled mentality has always made for some of the best indie rock songs (see: Wolf Parade’s “I’ll Believe in Anything,” Swan Lake’s “All Fires,” Sunset Rubdown’s “The Mending of the Gown”), so when he announced that he was releasing an album comprised of just him and a piano for his second outing as Moonface (after releasing his first with the Finnish band Siinai, 2012’s excellent and shortlisted Heartbreaking Bravery) I was game. And then I was floored, and every time I put this album on I’m back down there on the floor. It’s one of the most romantic records I have ever listened to. The album chronicles Krug’s move to Sweden to move in with his girlfriend, and it is full of huge gestures and emotional nakedness that is almost shocking coming from someone who typically trades in metaphor and wordplay. A song like “November 2011” would have been inconceivable in 2007 when I was at my peak Krug fandom worshiping Random Spirit Lover and all of it’s brilliant obtuseness.
Let me take you up these stairs
Let me take you to my life
Let me take you like a lamb
Leading the slaughterer to the knife
DAMN. I’m not sure whether or not this relationship worked out, but this is such a beautiful document of a moment that it really doesn’t matter what happened. I don’t really even want to know what happened. I just want to live in these songs forever. Just Krug’s voice and that piano and these minimalist torch songs.
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