MOONFACE
ORGAN MUSIC NOT VIBRAPHONE LIKE.. (JAGJAGUWAR)
...I'd hoped. Today is my birthday. I am getting up there. Maybe one day I will be full-old, not just half-old like I am now, and tour around as "Spencer Krug," playing ancient Wolf Parade and Sunset Rubdown songs on a baby grand.
I'll have a tumbler glass of whisky and an ashtray and a nice jacket. It will be terrible.
But until that day arrives I will go instead by "Moonface" - the last moniker I have left to exploit.
Moonface is not a band, just plain half-old me, in any solo or collaborative projects I'm involved in from now until whenever.
In early 2010 the first EP was released on Jagjaguwar. It was called Dreamland EP: Marimba and Shit-Drums, and sounds as the title suggests.
This past winter, trying to keep sane in my snowed-in Montreal home, I recorded another solo record.
This new one is an LP called Organ Music not Vibraphone like I'd Hoped and is due out August 2nd, 2011, and also sounds like the title suggests.
It's music played with an organ, organ beats, organ beeps and bloops, and some digital drums.
Music based on layers and loops, the hypnotizing sound of a leslie speaker, and the onslaught of melody.
In the end we have something between pop and lush drones. Though it's only 5 tracks long, the album runs around 37 minutes and is dense, but in a satisfying way, I hope, like eating a small, heavy piece of cheesecake.
I have always loved the burst of creativity that happens when projects come together for the first time - the first song written, the first recording, or the first show.
I love the process. With Moonface I hope to recreate that excitement repeatedly, with an ongoing series of collaborations which will tour and record like any other band, but which have set and finite life spans.
Later this year I will be recording with a Helsinki-based band called Siinai. I'll also be working on new percussion recordings and performances with my friend Mike Bigelow, who is a gentle, borderline alcoholic with fast hands also currently helping me to play the Organ Music LP onstage.
After this year, who knows? But I think I will stay on a zig-zag path until I fall. Moonface will probably never sound like Wolf Parade or Sunset Rubdown.
Lately, my musical ideas are quickly changing things, not steady or constant. They are completely unreliable, and so I lurch toward them impulsively.
The results might end up being just as random as the ideas, but hopefully they will be worth the effort nonetheless.