When Skullcrusher first mentioned her album to us, she spoke with half of her face covered with her hand, a sharp elbow pointed up at the Turf Club’s stage lights. Over darker layers of clothes she wore a white babydoll frock, not unlike the white dress she wore on the album art that she was talking about, And Your Song is Like a Circle. She drank out of a white ceramic mug which was set neatly on the keyboard that she played while she sang. She did not seem like she was trying very hard to make the audience laugh, but we did, just from the easygoing pacing of how she spoke and the sighs that intercepted her explanations. Like the two previous performers before her, Skullcrusher sang her songs with an intense stage presence: downturned eyes, skillfully drawn-out lyrics sung in a strong yet sweet voice, and the ever-so-often turn to her bandmates, who backed the singer-songwriter with reverberant, careful chords and delicate yet supportive vocal harmonies.

Skullcrusher, along with h. pruz and June McDoom, who preceded her, played to a cold room. I absolutely do not mean that the audience did not like the performances; in fact, the audience was noticeably attentive, responsive, and in ways very eager to listen. By cold, though, I mean the room was cold, it was about 30 degrees outside for it being April, and people sat at the bar and the tables, and those who did make their way up to the stage were not packed by any means – people were pretty spaced out. The songs did not ‘cozy us up’ at all, and I do not think they were supposed to. These songs about love, loss, dreams, great-grandmothers, etc., asked nothing of the audience but to receive. The audience did not seem to need to ‘hype up’ the performers. Instead, the music was very fitting to allow people to just show up with however their Monday went, and to be at the Turf Club and let the musicians do their thing. People were settled in, and each song was met with generous applause and polite whoops, and it all quickly settled down after a singer’s chirpy ‘thank you’ into the microphone. The overall feeling of the show was meditative and sweetly moving due to the line-up of the three folk-focused sets, each with beautiful vocals and intimate accompaniment from the instrumentalists.

Skullcrusher continues to be on tour, and this Turf Club show was the first night that June McDoom joined her as an opener. My favorite song from McDoom was her version of ‘Black Is The Color of My True Love’s Hair’, which really highlighted the velvety-ness of her vocals. McDoom also mentioned that she would be releasing a new record soon (and that she was going to finish the mixes that night, if I recall correctly). After McDoom played, h. pruz performed with a drummer and a guitarist along with her. I believe I heard that h. pruz had been performing with Skullcrusher for the past four weeks, and was one week away from the end of that leg. h. pruz performed some songs from her album Red sky at morning and No Glory -- the song ‘Angel’ from No Glory was my favorite of hers, where the instruments really fell away at the end and everything slowed down, breaking up a conventional song structure a little bit. As previously mentioned, Skullcrusher closed the line-up with various songs from And Your Song Is Like a Circle. Altogether, McDoom, h. pruz, and Skullcrusher offered so much of themselves as performers and songwriters, and it was well-received by a somewhat introspective and relaxed Monday night crowd at the Turf Club. 

Show Review: Maria Arriola