Day: July 3, 2013

Library Classification: Electronic
File Under: M

Artist: Majical Cloudz
Title: Impersonator
Label: Matador

Date(s) Recorded: 2013
Date Released: 2013-05-22
Date Received: 2013-05-15

Clean: All
Indecent: None

RIYL: Active Child, Perfume Genius, Youth Lagoon, Bedroom Pop
Play: 1-Impersonator, 3-Childhood’s End, 5-Mister, 8-Illusion, 9-Bugs Don’t Buzz

Comments:

This album is not in a hurry. Devon Welsch (vox) and Matthew Otto (synths) have made a record of intense emotion that asks you to accept it on its own terms and at its own pace. The album comes off like a series of Raymond Carver stories set to a sparse electronic score. The characters struggle with heavy themes: self doubt, “I’m a liar. I say I make music” (1-Impersonator), “Someone died, gunshot right outside, your father, he is dead” (3-Childhood’s End), and “Hey man, sooner or later you’ll be dead” (10-Notebook).

As bleak or as simple or existential as the lyrics seem, there’s a real sweetness to the music — like an old Irish tune, or a Smiths song. That’s where the album really succeeds, in that contrast, that synthesis of catharsis and synths.

-DJWB