Fluffhouse Music Reviews
8 Jun, 2008 - Piano Magic
Visitors to my last.fm profile may be curious about the artist who are top of my "most played" chart. So this post may explain some of the appeal of Piano Magic, apart from their cute name. They started out in the mid-90s as a loose collective featuring Glen Johnson and assorted collaborators, and they don't (normally) do piano music. Instead their prolific work has mixed whimsical electronica, elegant dream-pop, lush shoegaze, atmosphere-backed poetry fragments, and even a couple of ventures into pure ambient (A Trick of the Sea, review) and film soundtracks (Son de Mar, review). Later they settled into a more-or-less constant band line-up, and their three most recent albums have been filled with straightforward though exquisitely-arranged songs. Their finest album, Low Birth Weight (review), mixed all their best qualities of wistful melody, colourful arranging and atmosphere-setting in fine proportion. Here are three other albums from various stages of their career which show their eclectic tastes in contrast. (See also Writers Without Homes, review).
Piano Magic - Popular Mechanics (1997)
The eclectic collective's debut is a curiosity shop of colourful and
bizarre electronic miniatures. Just as Kraftwerk iconified modern
technology, Piano Magic here evoke a steampunk world with all manner
of marvellous contraptions. It moves at an itchy pace with a short
attention-span, as if we get no more than a glimpse of each antique on
the shelves, like the Aphex Twin-like kitchen-sink electronic
splurge of "Metal Coffee", and the glittering waltz melody of
"Revolving Moth Cage". The eerie mood competes with a
sense of whimsical fun, with neither quite winning. Drifting amongst
the electronics are a few brief dreamy female-voiced songs, including
"Wintersport" which morphs strangely into a Tangerine Dream-like
analogue synth race, and "Amongst Russian Lathes and Metal Curls"
backed by a single stark low hum. The most wonderful example of this
"art-house" song style (which they were to perfect on "Low Birth Weight") is "Wrong French", where Raechel Leigh recites wistful diary fragments in a deadpan-sweet tone over gently swirling keyboards.
Piano Magic - Artists' Rifles (2000)
Piano Magic's most minimalist full album is this elegiac set on the theme of
the First World War and its dead and missing. A spare militaristic
drum introduces a listenable though tasteful sequence of songs
interspersed with instrumentals. An array of haunting melodies are
sung by the delicately harmonised voices of Glen Johnson and Caroline
Potter, while the instrumental textures are stripped down to thin
gauzes of chiming, pinging guitars and the occasional solo cello or
harpsichord. The sombre beat and bassline of "No Closure" set the
scene - this song's lingering fadeout may be wordplay on the title but
it works. The vocal effects are particularly beautiful on "A Return
to the Sea" where Potter sings plaintively in stereo counterpoint with
herself. It dips briefly into heavier territory on the shoegazy
instrumental workout on "Password", before the album closes
respectfully with the featherweight tribute of the title-track.
Piano Magic - Part-Monster (2007)
The third and latest album by the "conventional group" incarnation of
Piano Magic is full of crisply-produced dream-pop, with more than a
hint of 80's alternative (Cure / New Order) sound. Vocals are shared
between the clear-toned Angele David-Guillou, who sings the soaring-chorused single "Incurable" and "Soldier Song", and Piano Magic mainstay Glen
Johnson, whose whinier voice fronts some some genuinely good tunes
including "Halfway Through" and "The Last Engineer". Simon Rivers
also lends a deadpan tone to the Morrissey-style dirge "England's
Always Better (As You're Pulling Away)", which pulls itself out of a
damp puddle with an elegant brass arrangement. It's all arranged with
admirable colour and precision - one particularly great moment is the
driving twin-guitar instrumental "Great Escapes", which recalls
another underappreciated band, The Church. Though the acoustic title song is a bit too much of a downer to finish on.
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