Making Faces

Kevin McDonald has never really pretended to be a conventional stand-up comic. On Making Faces, he approaches the microphone with the nervous cadence of an ensemble player stranded without scene partners, turning his set into a mixture of theatrical confessions and eccentric musical numbers. The high point is an extended story about sharing a cramped Manhattan apartment with Scott Thompson in the 1980s, when early HBO budgets could not cover separate rooms and Thompson managed to spark a kitchen fire while boiling water for eggs and masturbating.

Released as an audio comedy album by Comedy Dynamics in 2015, the recording caught McDonald between sketch workshops and animation voice work. He announces his discomfort immediately on the track “Sketch Comic Trying Stand Up,” then leans into the awkwardness. Between reflections on family life and Catholic upbringing, he picks up an electric guitar for “Sugar Free, Sugar Daddy,” singing about getting by on minor cable royalties.

The title track pushes the audio medium into pure silliness, using a formal narrator to announce the physical expressions McDonald is pulling for a crowd that listeners can only hear laughing.