Review: Moonface @ Le Poisson Rouge (11/9)
Leave the tambourine at home — you won’t need it where we’re going. Put away your trio of guitars, multiple drummer setups, Macbooks, synthesizers, grade-school recorders, whatever. In what may be one of the strongest cases for the solo piano since Elton John, Spencer Krug (Moonface) has returned to remind us of the potent simplicity of a poet on a baby grand.
Hardly an intuitive leap from last year’s Heartbreaking Bravery, Krug — formerly of Wolf Parade and Sunset Rubdown — is back sans-appetite for rock and roll (then made possible with the help of Finnish rock band Siinai). His latest effort, Julia With Blue Jeans On, resurrects Krug’s classical piano training (and the ghosts of lovers past) to remove whatever barriers remain between the listener and his wintry confessional. Those familiar with his distinctive voice need no help imagining how much range he manages to cover with such a stripped-down sound. Even the piano parts, which are largely relegated to understated chords, waste no amount of emotive potential with a weighty execution that my tiny, adolescent hands were never fully capable of. Sound tedious yet? Krug probably agrees with you. “There’s a certain “yeesh” factor to a lot of these songs,” he warned us before taking his seat. “You could probably just leave halfway through and get the idea.” Not so, Spencer! These are certainly long, iterative songs we’re talking about, but even if they didn’t totally arrest you up close, you could have stuck around for the self-deprecating, almost Mitch-Hedbergian humor alone (“No, don’t be sorry. That doesn’t help anyone,” he quipped to a woman after dissuading her from yelling at the noisy bargoers). That, and an encore performance featuring a new song he’d never played live before, which, come on, you know it sounded good.
To be sure, Julia is tinged with self-deprecating slights of a more serious nature: “I regretfully withdraw my offer to try to improve myself,” he concedes in “Love the House You’re In.” “Set fire to my music; it wasn’t much good anyway,” he sings in “November.” Whatever, dude. When you consider the triple threat of his clarion voice, general likability and ease with the keys (he certainly makes it look effortless), his remarkable songwriting abilities come through as affecting, not affected, with probing lyrical compositions that hold their own in an uncomplicated musical landscape: “Is there anything more famous, anything more grand, anything more noble than a folded hand?” he poses in the album’s title track.
Having said all of that, go have a listen at the thing, because all of this wordy musical analysis is just another way of saying “woof, I just got chills.” Forget setting fire to anything; I prefer the cold in this particular instance.
Review by Steph Koyfman. Follow her on Twitter at @stephkoyfman.
