Moonface: Julia With Blue Jeans On

Spencer Krug's fourth release as Moonface follows 2012's underrated collaboration with Siinai, and he once more refuses his own history. Stripped back to piano and vocal, Julia with Blue Jeans On is an affecting exploration of vulnerability, with subtle statements bound up in heavy themes of isolation, grief and death. Barbarian is a clear-eyed gauntlet that echoes Keith Jarrett and Owen Pallett in its stirring singularity and poignancy. Krug's strident melodies and vocals reflect different dialogues and build to furious conclusions. November 2011 is epic and combustible; Dreamy Summer is as tinkly as the title song is melancholy and sweeping; First Violin stretches his voice to abandon; and Your Chariot Awaits is a companion piece with its stormy beauty. However, it is the stunning Everyone Is Noah, Everyone Is the Ark that perhaps truly distils Krug's thesis of how to find beauty in an ugly world: "Everyone has to gather songs around them to feel useful and loving and loved". A record of the year.
Download: Barbarian, Everyone Is Noah, Everyone Is the Ark