HERE WE GO MAGIC IN BRIEF

Just a short one to maintain a bit of momentum - hopefully someone's still reading!

I have to thank my friend Simon for recommending this to me. I first spotted it in
Liverpool's legendary Probe Records, where it came with a borderline-illegible sticker crammed with effusive praise and a list of comparisons with other artists (you don't get that in HMV). Anything likened to Animal Collective/Panda Bear, Ariel Pink, Grizzly Bear and Brian Eno was bound to provoke a bit of interest from me.

All of those comparisons proved to be bang on the money, along with a noticeable Paul Simon influence on the first track 'Only Pieces' which pricked the ears of my Mum. It's a lo-fi album in the most accessible sense of the word - full of warm, swirling splendour, none of that unruly, scratchy noise you get from a Haunted Graffiti record, say. It may be rooted in leader Luke Temple's folk background, but it's also pretty psychedelic at times. Not in a particularly druggy sense, mind - it's just a record that's very easy to get lost in. The hypnotic songs are frequently exceptional too, not least the throbbing acoustic-led beauties 'Fangela' and 'Tunnelvision'. Wonderful waves of overlapping synths, crystalline guitars and vocals make 'I Just Want To See You Underwater' a clear higlight, whilst the sinuous riff and stop-start groove of 'Ahab' are equally effective. A pleasingly baroque anomaly closes the album in the form of the piano and accordion-led 'Everything's Big'. To summarize, it's a great overlooked gem, definitely one of the best of last year (its fuzzy, intimate atmosphere maybe giving it the edge for me over the undeniably impressive yet somewhat stilted 'Veckatimest' for example).

At least it would be if it weren't for the fact that three of its nine songs (one third of the album) consist of middling noise exercises. Such explorations can be worthwhile, but here they just seem to have been added as blatant filler. So, to be more precise, 'Here We Go Magic' was probably the best six-track EP of last year. A full album without the lazy padding could prove to be a minor classic. I'll be very interested to hear of their next move.

Hear here!