Piano Magic discography and songs: Music profile for Piano Magic, formed 1996. Genres: Dream Pop, Post-Punk, Indie Rock. Albums include Low Birth Weight, Disaffected, and The Troubled Sleep of Piano Magic. Zaal was an idea of Italian keyboardist Agostino Macor,major member of La Maschera Di Cera but also part of other Zuffanti projects like Hostsonaten,Finisterre and Rohmer.He created this project in 2002 and collaborated with many musicians,with whom he shared previous recording experiences like drummer Federico Foglia from Hostsonaten, guitarist Stefano Marelli from Finisterre,Hostsonaten. Limited to 500 copies worldwide. First time on vinyl since it's original release in 1999. This reissue features brand new sleeve notes by Glen Johnson and unseen pictures from the original photo session. Due to a wide range of influences, restless/relentless creative energies, and a supporting cast that's too numerous to list in full, random peeks into the catalog of the Glen Johnson -helmed Piano Magic - from super limited-edition singles on Spanish independents to full-length soundtracks - rarely result in the same thing twice. EMIL GILELS - A DISCOGRAPHY Prepared by Ates TANIN Last Update: August 28, 2006. The following is a discography of published recordings of Emil Gilels based on my findings over the years. Your comments, additions and corrections would be much appreciated. Please contact me by email: at-sr-eg@sympatico.ca.
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(iChe, 1996), a soundtrack for a Rachael Leigh performance that contained Wrong French, a naive female recitation over floating organ drones and tiny electronic turbulences, and Glen Johnson's claustrophobic instrumental of industrial music General Electric With Fairy Lights (that would remain one of their experimental peaks). The eight-minute Wintersport/ Cross-CountryIndie Rock
(iChe, 1997), with a detached childish voice (Hazel Burfitt) repeating a nursery rhyme over a non-existent arrangement, and with a surreal coda of natural and found sounds and electronic loops that was basically a mini-concerto of musique concrete (devised by Glen Johnson, Paul Tornbohm and Dominic Chennell), backed with Martin Cooper's surrealistic chamber sonata of Magnetic North, as well as Johnson's instrumental For Engineers A (Wurlitzer Jukebox, 1997), an atonal carillon propelled by a strong rhythmic base, were characterized by dreamy electronic sounds performed on cheap keyboards and fragile melodies held together by simple structures, something halfway between the 'bedroom pop' of Young Marble Giants and Brian Eno's futuristic-pop vignettes.Popular Mechanics (Che, 1997), recorded with three American expatriates, illustrated Glen Johnson's aesthetic principles across a broad range of musical structures. After the frantic drum'n'bass instrumental overture Metal Coffee (Ezra Feinberg on drums), the ghostly electronic noise of Everything Works Beautifully and the synthesized miniature (0.53), Johnson laid down the melodramatic drone of Amongst Russian Lathes and Metal Curls, animated only by a few words by a woman and a minimalist piano pattern, and, after another silly exercise in musique concrete, Birth of an Object, Johnson turned to Terry Riley's chromatic, repetitive and polymelodic minimalism with Revolving Moth Cage. The nine-minute To Be Swished/Dream of the Ups Driver was collated together a serene Brian Eno-esque lullaby, a bit of static noise and finally a couple of minutes of syncopated digital drums. After yet another abstract instrumental interlude, Freckled Robot, and a more substantial instrumental vignette, Soft Magnets, mixing different kinds of electronic sounds, the closer, You've Lost Your Footing in This World, was another charming Brian Eno-esque ambient atmosphere. This was certainly and educational album, experimenting (elegantly) with different formats and styles, from dissonance to ambience to samples, but hardly cohesive or meaningful for the listener.
Piano Magic
The song format staged a comeback with the EP The Fun Of The Century (Piao, 1998), that contained vocalist Jen Adam's and Johnson's sweet lullaby The Fun Of The Century as well as Johnson's and Martin Cooper's cubistic vignette Industrial Cutie and especially I Am The Sub-Librarian, a gentle breeze of an elegy engineered by the same couple of multi-instrumentalists (for droning cello and bells) with Caroline Potter on ethreal vocals.
The all-instrumental single Music For Annahbird (Bad Jazz, 1998), entirely composed ad performed by Johnson alone but rather disappointing (the ten-minute Me At 19, the futuristic vignette Music For Annahbird and the static buzz of Music For Wasps do not amount to much), the electronic folk-rock of Amongst The Books An Angel (Acetone, 1998), backed with the psychedelic noise of C'est Un Mauvais Presage Lorsque Ton Aureole A Tombe, the two suites of the EP A Trick of The Sea (Darla, 1998) and the tedious ballad There's No Need For Us To Be Alone (Rocket Girl, 1999), backed with the seven-minute Neil Young-ian meditation The Canadian Brought Us Snow (performed by a full-fledged rock band), sounded more like distractions once compared with the material of the second album, Low Birth Weight (Rocket Girl, 1999).
More distractions led to the EP Mort Aux Vaches (Staalplaat, 1999), before the third album, Artists Rifles (Rocket Girl, 2000), surfaced. Here Johnson has crafted a baroque work out of his 'lo-fi' beginnings, assimilating Caroline Potter's voice in a manner reminiscent of Mike Oldfield's suites and forfeiting some of the earlier eccentricities in favor of a Felt-like stupor. There's No Need For Us To Be Alone is the single, followed by I Came To Your Party (Acuarela, 2001).
Piano Magic Albums
The mini-album Son De Mar (4AD, 2001) contains a (calm and relaxed) film soundtrack.
Almost Yesterday (1997) and the double-CD Seasonally Affective: 1996-2000 (Rocket Girl, 2001) are career retrospectives (the latter collects all their EPs and singles of those years, but only the first disc is worth the money).
Artist Biography by Andy Kellman
Due to a wide range of influences, restless/relentless creative energies, and a supporting cast that's too numerous to list in full, random peeks into the catalog of the Glen Johnson-helmed Piano Magic -- from super limited-edition singles on Spanish independents to full-length soundtracks -- rarely result in the same thing twice. Started in the mid-'90s by Johnson, Dominic Chennell, and Dick Rance with the intention to base their recordings around a small nucleus and whomever would like to contribute -- using 4AD founder Ivo Watts-Russell's This Mortal Coil as something of a template -- the material released by Piano Magic has ranged from arty baroque pop to childlike electronic knob-twiddling and whatever points you can and can't think of in between. The lone thread running through Piano Magic's records, aside from Johnson's presence, is a sense of wistfulness. Johnson has explained his desire to soundtrack memories, and with that, Piano Magic has found their niche.
One early hope of Piano Magic was to avoid the live element. However, when their first single, 1996's Wrong French, was awarded Single of the Week in Melody Maker, the initial trio felt obligated to play out in support of it. Along with Paul Tornbohm, the group played their first gig and opted not to play any of the material found on their records. They also made no attempt whatsoever to sound anything like their records, so odds were pretty good that a few curious concert-goers were perplexed after returning from the shops and hearing the studio incarnation of the outfit.
'Signed' to Che, the label that released Wrong French, the group kicked out two more singles (with one issued on Wurlitzer Jukebox) prior to releasing their first full record, Popular Mechanics, in November 1997. Including some of the additional personnel featured on the preceding singles, such as vocalists Raechel Leigh and Hazel Burfitt and instrumentalist Martin Cooper, the record threw together some previously released material along with a clutch of new songs. As uneven as the record is, its mysteriousness provokes replay after replay. The band left Che, having been frustrated with their lack of effort. Not surprisingly, the constant financial flux soon got the best of the label.
In 1999, a crazy slew of singles and EPs for labels like Staalplaat, Darla, and Bad Jazz -- including a split single with Matmos for Lissy's -- surrounded the release of the second album, Low Birth Weight (Rocket Girl). Thanks to just a little more focus and a higher level of quality from beginning to end, the record is often regarded by fans as their best work. In addition to most of the prior suspects, Caroline Potter, Alexander Perls, Matt Simpson, Jen Adam, Simon Rivers (Bitter Springs), David Sheppard (State River Widening), and Peter Astor (the Weather Prophets, the Wisdom of Harry) figured into the process of making it.
The following year was one of Piano Magic's least prolific, but it still spawned a remix EP for Germany's Morr Music and the rather conceptual full-length Artists' Rifles, which bases its subject matter in the first World War. It's the group's most consistent work in terms of sound. It features none of the electronics heard on prior releases, instead focusing on delicate interplay between drums, guitars, and the cello work of Adrienne Quartly. At some point prior to its recording, Miguel Marin was added to the group's lineup apparently as a permanent member.
In 2001, Piano Magic was commissioned to score Spanish director Bigas Luna's Son de Mar. The director had heard Low Birth Weight in a record shop and was impressed enough to ask them to provide music for the film. Peaceful, lulling, breezy, and completely instrumental, the score demonstrates Piano Magic's astonishing range. Released by 4AD, Son de Mar spawned a deal between the two, and the group began working on the proper follow-up to Low Birth Weight later in the year. To satiate fans and irritate hardcore vinyl collectors, Rocket Girl released Seasonally Affective, an exhaustive double-disc compilation of singles. Writers Without Homes was eventually completed and released in mid-2002. Piano Magic left 4AD soon after, releasing The Troubled Sleep of Piano Magic in 2003 on Spain's Green UFOs label and Disaffected in 2005 on Darla.
With the exception of a few brief stops in Russia, Portugal, and Belgium, the band spent the majority of the following year touring Italy. Another 12' vinyl record, Never It Will Be the Same Again (featuring contributions from conceptual artist Bojan Sarcevic), was released during this time. Piano Magic returned to the studio in late 2006, and their ninth full-length, Part Monster, hit stores the following summer. In the years that followed, they released two further albums before announcing their final record in 2017, which was aptly titled Closure.