Mrs Magician on Windian Records

In Eric's note about his latest singles on Windian he mentioned that Mrs. Magician had recently broken up. I was already writing about Soccer Mom's self titled full length when I heard they also just called it quits. It's a sad reminder of how fleeting bands are or can be when you imagine four people playing together for longer than even five years let alone the pressures of touring and your album being responsible for peoples livelyhoods. On any scale it's tough to collaborate creatively and that's what makes singles special, for any one of these bands I've talked about in the last year this could be the last one.

"Friday Night" has a big kick countoff into the Magicians favorite form of harmony garage. I remember thinking their last few had surf inspired sounds and this moves in from the beach a bit with a deep back beat while those harmonies are getting even higher like Kurt Heasley's Kinks stylings. So much closer to psych their next one would inevitably be on Trouble In Mind. It's Friday night and she's with another guy delivered so upbeat in Adam Widener punk phrasing that to their detriment you think 'Yea, well it must not be a big deal buddy.' The whole thing slows down to molasses still sounding as good with a female backup section coming out with a new chorus changing the direction of the track. He's lost his mind a bit and is listening to this single and talking to her - I mean himself. An extremely long fade out on this last piece of pop psych, bittersweet is it's potentially their last.

B-Side's "Crosses" has a nervous dark jangle with synth backing with heavy weird barrages of reverb. The big strums with delay that goes on a full measure. Jacob is right away getting religious on a road trip across the USA, naming names. Heavy on the toms this changes too quickly to keep up with except it's rooted in that '60s american surf garage as much as it is the English Kinks raw or The Zombies unsettling optimism that comes off kind of manic like they could snap singing with a forced grin. Darker forces are at work in this narrative, hinting at vampires and zombies next to xylophone clinks and a slide down the garage scale. R.I.P.

Get this from Windian Records who just announced this Grave Walks record which is a side project of Dan Sartain and Jacob Turnbloom from the Mrs.



Wait - STOP THE PRESSES THEY ARE BACK TOGETHER? I am really behind the times.