I had been readiing for quite a while about Piano Magic , but I finally got hold of their 1999 album 'Low Birth Weight' just a few months after it was released thanks to me mate Guy Goessens (who is a lurker here !). Low Birth Weight must be one of the best albums of the last 5 years or so.
Piano Magic are very versatile , quiet moments mixed with This Mortal Coil influences.In fact their latest album is on 4AD.
Anyway I got to see them last Friday at the Les Nuits Botanique in Brussels. They played the Musee venue and God bless the soundman there for the sound was amazing. Piano Magic were unbelivable , much louder than on record ,that beautiful wall of sound that we were familiar with before withthe Kitchens of Distinction (their darker/heavy moments) and now with Mogwai . I'm really terrible and describing bands so I'm pasting off their website.....
NME
(UK)
JUNE 1999
Piano Magic
Low Birth Weight
(Rocket Girl)
Piers Martin
The ashtray overflows with worries but the brandy has softened the blows. Outside, the car is being vandalised. It's 4am and Piano Magic's Glen Johnson, not for the first time, can't sleep. He's thinking about her, of course, but why does he bother? God, it's all so futile. If you're looking for troubles, Glen's your man. And like moths attracted to a flickering 40-watt light bulb, they come, lured by his poetic sadness and downtrodden weariness. Three years he's been doing this, making his friends fuel his post-Cocteaus depression; they've turned up to help, yet still no-one's learned. Simon Rivers from The Bitter Springs, he wants an ugly wife. Baby Birkin's Raechel Leigh, she doesn't understand her man. And Pete Astor from The Wisdom Of Harry? He helps Johnson through the trauma of Disco Inferno's "Waking Up."
There's a song called "I Am The Sub-Librarian," which is just asking for trouble. It gets it, naturally, and it's a fractured, beautiful thing. Post-rock with a broken heart, "Low Birth Weight" drags droning into it's mid-life crisis. Johnson, you suspect, has never been happier. (7)
DREAM MAGAZINE
(USA)
DECEMBER 2001
Piano Magic
Low Birth Weight
This '99 release sounds like some lost 80's masterpiece of dark atmospherics and sweetly gloomy pop. Wonderful and eerie, experimental and dreamy, trance and organic psychedelia in a mix of male and female vocals. Bringing to mind: Deux Filles, Strawberry Switchblade, Durutti Column, Anna Domino and such contemporary outfits as; Hood, Jessamine, Current 93, Tindersticks, and Lambchop's darkest musings. Piano, not so much, Magic, much indeed. Twilight drawing room's shifting ambience and slowly emerging details, keep this sound/song tapestry consistently captivating.
Review of their latest album
UNCUT (UK)
SEPTEMBER 2002
Piano Magic
Writers Without Homes (4AD) ****
Neil Davenport
Fourth album from London's arty moodsters, featuring Tarwater's Ronald Lippok and ex-Cocteau Twin Simon Raymonde
The post-rock/electronica junction may have stalled now, but Piano Magic still shows it's potency. Previously, they'd utilise My Bloody Valentine-esque fogscapes with metronomic Kraftwerk click-beats to fashion intense, autumnal melancholia. While the lullaby chimes, gurgling analogue beats and ghostly femme vocals (featuring Le Volume Courbe's Charlotte Marionneau) still prevail, now Piano Magic's minimal but lovely patterns are more organic - all clunking xylophones, oboe and grand pianos. Yet Piano Magic aren't just pretty background instrumentalists. Instead, Glen Johnson's poetic lyricism about love and loss on "The Season Is Long" and "Already Ghosts" echoes their forlorn splendour. All powerfully evocative as a French arthouse flick.
Piano Magic are very versatile , quiet moments mixed with This Mortal Coil influences.In fact their latest album is on 4AD.
Anyway I got to see them last Friday at the Les Nuits Botanique in Brussels. They played the Musee venue and God bless the soundman there for the sound was amazing. Piano Magic were unbelivable , much louder than on record ,that beautiful wall of sound that we were familiar with before withthe Kitchens of Distinction (their darker/heavy moments) and now with Mogwai . I'm really terrible and describing bands so I'm pasting off their website.....
NME
(UK)
JUNE 1999
Piano Magic
Low Birth Weight
(Rocket Girl)
Piers Martin
The ashtray overflows with worries but the brandy has softened the blows. Outside, the car is being vandalised. It's 4am and Piano Magic's Glen Johnson, not for the first time, can't sleep. He's thinking about her, of course, but why does he bother? God, it's all so futile. If you're looking for troubles, Glen's your man. And like moths attracted to a flickering 40-watt light bulb, they come, lured by his poetic sadness and downtrodden weariness. Three years he's been doing this, making his friends fuel his post-Cocteaus depression; they've turned up to help, yet still no-one's learned. Simon Rivers from The Bitter Springs, he wants an ugly wife. Baby Birkin's Raechel Leigh, she doesn't understand her man. And Pete Astor from The Wisdom Of Harry? He helps Johnson through the trauma of Disco Inferno's "Waking Up."
There's a song called "I Am The Sub-Librarian," which is just asking for trouble. It gets it, naturally, and it's a fractured, beautiful thing. Post-rock with a broken heart, "Low Birth Weight" drags droning into it's mid-life crisis. Johnson, you suspect, has never been happier. (7)
DREAM MAGAZINE
(USA)
DECEMBER 2001
Piano Magic
Low Birth Weight
This '99 release sounds like some lost 80's masterpiece of dark atmospherics and sweetly gloomy pop. Wonderful and eerie, experimental and dreamy, trance and organic psychedelia in a mix of male and female vocals. Bringing to mind: Deux Filles, Strawberry Switchblade, Durutti Column, Anna Domino and such contemporary outfits as; Hood, Jessamine, Current 93, Tindersticks, and Lambchop's darkest musings. Piano, not so much, Magic, much indeed. Twilight drawing room's shifting ambience and slowly emerging details, keep this sound/song tapestry consistently captivating.
Review of their latest album
UNCUT (UK)
SEPTEMBER 2002
Piano Magic
Writers Without Homes (4AD) ****
Neil Davenport
Fourth album from London's arty moodsters, featuring Tarwater's Ronald Lippok and ex-Cocteau Twin Simon Raymonde
The post-rock/electronica junction may have stalled now, but Piano Magic still shows it's potency. Previously, they'd utilise My Bloody Valentine-esque fogscapes with metronomic Kraftwerk click-beats to fashion intense, autumnal melancholia. While the lullaby chimes, gurgling analogue beats and ghostly femme vocals (featuring Le Volume Courbe's Charlotte Marionneau) still prevail, now Piano Magic's minimal but lovely patterns are more organic - all clunking xylophones, oboe and grand pianos. Yet Piano Magic aren't just pretty background instrumentalists. Instead, Glen Johnson's poetic lyricism about love and loss on "The Season Is Long" and "Already Ghosts" echoes their forlorn splendour. All powerfully evocative as a French arthouse flick.
