Organ Music Not Vibraphone Like I'd Hoped

About

The one-song, twenty-minute debut by Spencer Krug’s Moonface (<i>Dreamland EP: Marimba and S**t-Drums</i>) promised a new frontier for the Wolf Parade/Sunset Rubdown musician: Krug’s shaman-meets-cryptographer blend of bony drums and mystical marimbas interwoven with African tones and hippie wonderment (“I am a moonfaced flower child, I am”) was hypnotic and intriguing. On his sophomore release, <i>Organ Music Not Vibraphone</i>, Krug traded the marimbas for vibraphones, but he chucked it all after a false start and instead went with an oscillating, looping vintage organ and drum machines. Tracks averaging seven minutes in length burble and bleep and burp, pop melodies struggling to burst out of the Steve Reich-ian patterns that twist and turn like Escher mazes, eschewing easy choruses and sensible bridges. Aiming for “something between pop and lush drones,” Krug nails it: the eerie beauty of tracks like “Fast Peter” and “Return to the Violence of the Ocean Floor,” the dance-floor menace of “Sh** Hawk In the Snow” and the melancholy charm of “Whale Song “ are utterly captivating.

via Apple Music