The Great Beyond

White Magic “Childhood Song” – A few summers ago, I somehow ended up seeing White Magic open up for three different bands over the course of a few weeks, and it wasn’t exactly the most fun thing ever. The problem wasn’t entirely to do with their music — the songs were generally fine, but repetitive both in terms of structure and the way their setlist was paced. Similar songs would be grouped in clusters based on instrumentation, and it reinforced the impression that they were doing the same thing over and over again. The more compelling issue was the alarmingly negative charisma of vocalist and songwriter Mira Billotte, who seemed so cold, removed, and joyless on stage that it made me wonder if she was actually clinically depressed, especially since she never seemed so absent and apparently miserable any of the times when I saw her play with her previous band.

I’m not sure if anything has changed for Billotte or the band in the time since, but the quality of their new record is a dramatic step foward, mainly because they’ve found ways to keep their songs from flattening out or sinking too deep into dourness. “Childhood Song” wraps their obvious love of British folk around a stately piano and a vocal melody that descends and ascends like a person unsure of which direction to take on a spiral staircase, which serves as a nice echo of the lyric’s ambivalent sentiment in regard to the innocence of youth, and the positive nature of growth and change. (Click here to pre-order it from Ear Rational.)

Pablo “This Will Be Our Year” – Pablo singer Paul Schalda’s voice is close enough to that of the Zombies’ Colin Blunstone that you could probably convince gullible/casual fans that this is actually an alternate recording by the original players. This version lacks the oh-so-60s touches of the Zombies’ studio arrangement, and gains quite a bit for that, limiting the song to only the essential lead vocal and piano parts and bringing out a greater warmth and intimacy. The latter is key, since my favored interpretation of the song is that it’s not actually sung to the person being addressed so much as it is the singer psyching himself up on his own, and practicing in his head something that he’d never get quite right if he expressed it directly to this lovely person who has filled him with such overwhelming optimism. (Click here to buy it from 230 Records.)

Elsewhere: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site, and it features mp3s from Lyrics Born, Chavez, and an especially sublime cut from Bossanova. Believe me, you really don’t want to miss that last one.