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)