Moonface, Cecil Sharp House

Canadian singer, songwriter, and keyboardist Spencer Krug, formerly of Wolf Parade and Sunset Rubdown, performs as Moonface this autumn.

When Canadian singer, songwriter, and keyboardist Spencer Krug performs at Cecil Sharp House as Moonface on September 9  you’re going to ask yourself: how does he remember all his verses? By any standard, Krug’s songs are wordy. But in an industry dominated by simplistic, practically monosyllabic pop, the complexity and ambition of Krug’s vision is particularly striking. 

Krug is better known as the vocalist for indie group Wolf Parade and for his art-rock group Sunset Rubdown. He has also been involved in four additional musical acts, somehow.

The guy is prolific. In 2010, Krug decided his current projects weren’t giving him the space he wanted to muck about with home-recorded instrumentals, so he created Moonface. Unusually enough for a side-project, Moonface has consistently put out material every year—material that is distinctive from Krug’s normal sound. 

Krug is known for his almost Byzantine songwriting: he likes weaving intricate, fantastical stories (the name of his most recent Sunset Rubdown album, Dragonslayer, is characteristic) and he likes his music to be dense and full of frenzied flourishes. Moonface sees him eschewing his trademark approach: as the name suggests, 2010’s Dreamland EP: Marimba and Sh*t-Drums employed just a marimba, sh*t drums, and Krug’s vocals to conjur a twenty-minute long epic. The following year Krug teamed up with Finnish prog-rock group Sinnai in Heartbreaking Bravery to document the end of a relationship: thematically and musically, it’s one of his most accessible efforts. 

In October, he released Julia with Blue Jeans On. He doesn’t seem particularly happy on the album, but sadness seems to kickstart his creative juices. The record is simply Krug’s quivering voice accompanied by a piano (Krug is a classically-trained pianist). It was an attempt, Krug has revealed, to reintroduce some simplicity into his often complex tales. The LP has him despondently grappling with affairs of the heart and the onslaught of time—the title track is maybe the most original love song we’ve heard in awhile. But on November 2011, he moans, ‘Set fire to my music, it wasn’t much good anyway.’ Nonsense. Krug has justifiably been described as 'the most talented songwriter of this generation'. 

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