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PIANO MAGIC - Opencast Heart
imprec045 - CDep - $7.99 
Track Listing
Echoes On Ice
The Journal Of A Disappointed Man
I Didn't Get Where I Am Today
This Heart Machinery
–Overview
A Note To Listeners From Piano Magic:
I should input that this is, hands down, thee most purely electronic
record Piano Magic have ever made - a brash stylistically pendulum
swing from the most recent album, The Troubled Sleep Of Piano Magic.
It evokes not only cruel English Winters but also the ghost of a
great lost treasure of English Literature, WNP Barbellion (his early
20th century diary was entitled, The Journal Of A Disappointed Man).
It's a record with a warm heart in a glacial season. It was recorded
at Piano Magic's Murder Mile Studio in the redbrick, rundown backstreets
of East London and features the vocal contributions of Angele David-Guillou,
oft chanteause with the band, though soon to be more regarded for
her own exquisite project, Klima.
BIO
From it's conception as a bedroom studio hobby in Summer 1996, Piano
Magic's trajectory has never been textbook. Random at best.
Originally, a self-confessed "revolving door" operation
- musicians arriving, contributing and leaving as they pleased - a
catalogue of varied singles, EPs and two albums were harvested by
1998. This convey-belt membership also resulted in a plethora of sonic
stylings, from smallbeat Kraftwerkian "Meccano Pop" on debut
album, Popular Mechanics (1997) to the breathless, ethereal, multi-layered
melancholy of Low Birth Weight (1998).
Only when founder member, Glen Johnson met Spanish drummer, Miguel
Marin, in 1999 did Piano Magic resemble anything like a conventional
format group. Smooth-talked into playing a Dutch festival "which
actually turned out quite well," they decided to play anywhere
they were wanted and began to build something of a cult following,
particularly on the European Continent. Spain particularly warmed
to their then pleasing coupling of baroque and Joy Division - the
band played superb shows at the Benicassim and BAM music festivals,
promoting the post-modernist baroque sound of "Artists' Rifles"
(1999).
Ironically, the band have never infiltrated the hearts of the British
music press - out of time, unfashionable and kinda weird looking,
it's best not to stay home much. Tours of Germany, Holland, Italy,
Belgium, France, Spain peppered the next few years. Marin left after
an ill-fated stint with 4AD for which the group delivered their most
critically contentious work, Writers Without Homes and the soundtrack
to Spanish director, Bigas Luna's Son De Mar movie. Philosophical
about the experience, the band regrouped, drafted in French musicians,
Jerome Tcherneyan and Franck Alba and recorded their (so far) opus
maximus, The Troubled Sleep Of Piano Magic, for tiny Spanish independent,
Green Ufos. This new album perfectly encapsulates the live sound of
the group - delicate vocals, glistening guitars, insistent drums,
anthemic synth washes.
A new record, Saint Marie EP followed in June and featured collaborations
with lost 60's folk heroine, Vashti Bunyan, Alan Sparhawk from Low
and Ben Ayres from Cornershop. A cast who only serve the notion further
that Piano Magic are now, more than ever, a band of some celestial
importance.
To date, Piano Magic has harboured over 60 sonic orphans with nothing
better to do, recorded 5 'proper' albums, a double CD retrospective
and many, many singles. They've outlived several of the labels they've
recorded for and show no signs of stopping. At this point in time
(August 2004), Piano Magic is Glen Johnson, Franck Alba, Jerome Tcherneyan,
Alasdair Steer and Cedric Pin.
Reviews
"(A) lovely, unsettling record whose stealthy, witching-hour
atmospherics are ultimately utterly overwhelming" - **** Uncut
"Their music here is English through and through, a blend
of barbed, revealing lyricism redolent of Morrissey's sadder musings
and calm, considered arrangements drawing on the quieter end of
British indie rock." - *** The Independent
"(An) utterly spellbinding collection of bittersweet and savagely
beautiful songs" - Comes With A Smile
"Inhabiting a parallel universe where This Mortal Coil and
The Durutti Column set the agenda." **** - Mojo
“Deciding whether Piano Magic are sick or inspired is impossible
- the two go hand in clammy hand so often that it seems stupid to
ask. Yes, I can imagine a review where this would be called exploitative,
pretentious, perverse - but at least two of those words are compliments
under another name.” Melody Maker
“Few other releases occupy this fertile middle ground between
ambience and experimentation, between pop and abstraction, and none
I know of succeeds with such effortless finesse. Highly recommended”
The Wire in regards to Piano Magic's album Popular Mechanics
“Retro-futurists ahoy!” NME
"With the whir of keyboards, clicking percussion and the most
brittle of voices, Piano Magic create disarmingly pretty and oddly
evocative records.” Alternative Press
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