MAGNET (USA) 1999
(USA)
1999

Piano Magic
Low Birth Weight

Jud Cost

The spare, preicse sound of Piano Magic - a "revolving door membership" aggregation from somewhere near Nottingham, England, whose only permanent member is guitarist Glen Johnson - leaves a haunting aftertaste. Never putting a wrong foot forward, Piano Magic is as adept at the deceptively simple ("Birdymachine" features a chirping tape loop and a music box playing a nursery rhyme) as it is at the sinister musings of "Crown Estate." Like similarly austere British combos from decades past (Felt and Young Marble Giants, for example), Piano Magic may require the listener to spend a little time to make the connection. Low Birth Weight almost demands a commitment to wade through the entire album. Short cuts may short circuit the experience, but the rewards are there for the taking. Caroline Potter and Simon Rivers alternate the (mostly) spoken vocals, and the percussion/sampling - ranging from the Roxy Music/Eno screech of "Snow Drums" to the churning cauldron of "Snowfall Soon" - is provided by Martin Cooper. The album's most engaging track, "I Am The Sub-Librarian," is, however, also one of it's most rudimentary. It features Potter singing softly over Johnson's phased guitar and Cooper's "lighthouse foghorns" and "hammered anvil," pointing out once again that it's not what you use, but how you use it.