UNDER THE SURFACE
(UK)
FEBRUARY 2002

Piano Magic
Seasonally Affective
1996 - 2000
Rocket Girl

Adrian Pannett

This lavish 25-track double-CD and rarities compilation on Rocket Girl wraps up the last four years of Piano Magic recordings in bedrooms and studios with multifarious musicians on multiple record labels, leaving the slate clean for a new future signed to the spiritual home of 4AD. The first CD focuses mainly on the early and largely electronic and spoken-word experiments. Betraying a love for the likes of Cabaret Voltaire, Kraftwerk and Can as well as strange romantic literature. These early stages set the trend of enrolling female singers to intone Glen Johnson's lyrically strong songs. And anyone who needs convincing of the special conjures possible with this approach should listen to the marvellous first single, "Wrong French" where Raechel Leigh eerily remarks, "I'm too tiny for a heart this big, it swells like an ocean, it's breaking the jail of ribs" as if she were reading Glen's philosophical prologue to the history of Piano Magic. The second CD more or less correlates to the temporary solidification of the band's line-up, with the increased tendency for Glen to sing his own incredibly rich lyrics and the influx of more ethereal guitar influences drawn from The Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil and Dead Can Dance. There are plenty of treasures scattered within the second CD, including the scorching avant-garde pop of "Amongst The Books An Angel," the marvellous mood-laded, "The Canadian Brought Us Snow" and the impossibly personal "Sketch For Joanne." This compilation perfectly captures the development of one of Britain's most prolific, inventive and potent collectives driven by continuous collaboration and fuelled by the songwriting prowess of Glen Johnson. Seasonally astonishing. ****