-──────────────── ▄██▄ ────────
▀█████▄
-── ███ ███ ─ ▄██▄ ▀█████▄ ────
▐███ ███▌ ▀██▀ ▄██████▄
-─ ████ ████ ▄▄▄ ▄██████████▄
▐█████████▌ ███▌▐████▀ ▀████▀
███████████ ████ ██▀ ─── ▀▀
▐█████ █████▌▐███ ▀
██████ ██████ ▀██ ──────────
███████ ███████▄ █ -.2ooo.-
─────── ▄▄▄ ────────────────
"HiGH ▀ iNTELLiGeNCE tRoLLS"
_______________________________________________________________________
a r t i s t : Piano Magic
t i t l e : Open Cast Heart
d a t e : 2005
l a b e l : Important Records
g e n r e : Electronic
r l s. d a t e : March/2005
t r a c k s : 04
b i t r a t e : VBRkbps
s i z e : 24,9 MB
_______________________________________________________________________
"A few years ago, I read a message board thread that asked if
there was a band that felt like a combination of Boards of
Canada and the Sundays. Someone suggested Piano Magic, which
made some sense. No matter what cast of characters surrounds
Piano Magic's Glen Johnson on a given record, he has a knack
for organically incorporating technology and sound processing
to compliment the songs, which are typically gentle, sometimes
ethereal, and always dour.
If that BoC + Sundays idea once felt vaguely true, the
four-song Opencast Heart EP confirms it. A sticker on the
outside of the CD quotes Johnson as saying this the most
electronic record has made, and who am I to argue? I certainly
don't hear identifiable guitars or other conventional
instruments. Actually, I don't hear much of anything-- this is
an unusually subtle and quiet record, with most tracks
consisting of some ghostly synth drifts and perhaps one or two
slow percussion sounds. The lone exception is "The Heart
Machinery", which-- while not exactly a burner-- rises to
mid-tempo and has Johnson doing a neu-romantic croon at the
upper end of his range, suggesting a contemporary affinity with
Junior Boys or Styrofoam. Beyond that, you'll need snowshoes to
negotiate one of Piano Magic's most wintry landscapes.
"Echoes on Ice" sets the mercury falling, with some
barely-there chord wisps and slight crackles of static to back
the hushed whispers of rotating member Angele David-Gillou.
"Echoes on ice on a blue winter night," she sings, "from the
spikes of your bike in sub-Fahrenheit." Brrrrr. Her voice is
suddenly thrown into reverse for the last couplet, ending the
song on a haunting note. "The Journal of a Disappointed Man" is
one of Johnson's spoken-word-over-soundscape pieces, and not a
bad one as those go, though these ultimately have little replay
value. Lines like "I took a position at the Natural History
Museum, but left after only three months due to allergies" show
he can have a chuckle at himself, at least.
Best of all is the dry, minimal, and lovely "I Didn't Get Where
I Am Today", which starts with David-Gillou saying she "stayed
home, snowed in" and ends with "the only light's a cigarette,
the bed feels cold as ice." Appropriately, she harmonizes with
herself, alone to the end. After so much inconsistency, Piano
Magic sounds best in small doses, and this tight unified EP
shows that Johnson is still capable of creating interesting
records.
Rating: 7.2"
-Mark Richardson, PitchForkMedia
_______________________________________________________________________
01-Echoes on Ice [03:34]
02-The Journal of a Disappointed Man [04:42]
03-I Didn't Get Where I Am Today [04:01]
04-This Heart Machinery [03:39]
-------
15:56 min
_______________________________________________________________________