King Krule. Photograph by Pari Dukovic.
King Krule–otherwise known under the still magisterial Zoo King–doesn’t let you sit easy with expectations. The 19-year old carrot-top wan faced lad looks more in line, it’s been said, with a certain clan in Harry Potter than the future of jazz indie, a disjunct brought to full force with his ragged melodies and eerie echo of, as a friend pointed out, the Joe Strummer throb. The melancholy contradiction between childlike guilelessness and barfly world-weariness contribute much to the curiosity (and his visual iconography leads an oblique path to Where the Wild Things Are), but his debut album 6 Feet Below the Moon represents an thoughtful artist with an interesting career in front of him.
For now, here’s a prototype of his song Lizard State from his Zoo King days.
