MOONFACE – Organ Music Not Vibraphone Like I’d Hoped (Part 3)

So, it appears Sarah has come around and thinks Krug found himself in the organ. She also tells us that she has a little “pop dude” living inside of her and presumes that this is normal and universal. Let me be the first to point out that only Scientologists and pregnant ladies have little people living inside of them, Sarah.

From: Sarah Braunstein
To: Brandon Hall

I did not take to Organ Music at all until the third or fourth pass at it, but albums like this always require a few warm-up rounds for me, particularly when each track is over 6 minutes long. Unless it’s Wolf Parade, listening to Krug’s work is not about instant gratification. Rather than rocking out and making music that will sell out venues – which he can do easily – Krug seems to be turning to Moonface as an avenue for self-growth, pushing himself to create music that’s true to his aesthetic with different (and very limited) sets of tools for each album. It’s his form of “continuing education” and he keeps himself accountable for completing it by sharing it with the rest of the world.  In “Return to the Violence of the Ocean Floor,” Krug basically defines Moonface for his listeners in a similar light: “I’ve got a spirit made out of sand / sometimes it slips through my fingers…So I kneel down / And gather it up / Grain by grain / I have to keep it safe / I still have some things to say.”

For me, the Moonface project also demonstrates how hyper self-aware Krug is, which contributes to his particular brand of “genius.” With Organ Music Krug set the paradigm — procure a vintage double-manual organ and create a drone-filled, noisy album — and then spends the rest of the time rebelling against that set of restrictions. He wrote the press release for the album and mentions “a little dude who lives inside me that loves pop music.” So we have Krug, working on some layered, droney, noise-rock while fully aware that he’d prefer to be pulling together some 1-4-5 chord progressions. unable to defeat that urge, we’re left with an album that, in turn, encourages both floor-laying and the head-bobbing-knees-bending dance that is so common at indie rock shows.

I think it’s worth sharing the rest of that “little pop dude” quote from Krug’s press release (Note: Spencer, we all have that little pop-loving dude inside of us):

“You see, I have a little dude who lives inside me that loves pop music, and he sometimes finds his way into my hands. When this happens, my fingers move toward the catchiest melodies they can, like bees to flowers with the most pollen. It can’t be helped. The little pop-dude inside me turns a few notes into a melody and I say, ‘Okay, that’s nice little dude, a little poppy maybe, but nice, maybe we can use that once, somewhere in the song.’ And he says, ‘But wouldn’t you rather hear it over and over again? Maybe throw it in a few times now, and then a few times again towards the end of the song? And maybe that ‘drone’ in your left hand would sound better if you moved it up and down the keyboard a little bit.’ But then I say, ‘Come on little dude, I’m no fool, that’s just a chord progression you’re trying to get out of me. Next thing you know we’ll be repeating it over and over again, the melody will be a hook, and I’ll have made another random half-pop song.’ And then the little dude says, ‘WTF, man.’ And then I say, ‘Okay little dude, okay, party on.'”

Last point I want to make before handing it off to you: I’m really glad that the vibraphone thing didn’t work out. Although you can use different types of mallets to strike the keys, bow them, or change the speed of the spinning valves to toy with the vibrato, I think Krug really found himself in the organ. We’ve got layering, we’ve got driving rhythms, rockin’ organ solos (see 4:00 on “Shit-Hawk in the Snow”), etc. There’s enough variety in sound effects that Krug incorporates that I don’t feel like I just spent 40 minutes listening to the same instrument. Something tells me that wouldn’t be the case with Christine Balfa’s 55 minutes of solo triangle.

But I digress. I’m glad that Krug chose an instrument that allows him to use all ten of his fingers at once.

“You should have been a writer, you should have played guitar”

Sarah