Magic Arm – Good Views Near North
From the album, Dance Mania, released Fri 29 July 2022
Bandcamp / Digital / Cassette
www.magicarmmusic.com
Multi-instrumental, non-genre musical outsider, Marc Rigelsford, better known as Magic Arm, releases the straight-up, clap-along, guitar groove of Good Views Near North to take one more step towards the emergence of his first album release in nine years. The relentless drive, the looping riff linked to synthetic beats and atmospheric breaks combine to offer a further, tempting glimpse into Dance Mania, the album announced for release on digital and cassette formats on Fri 29 July 2022.
Recorded in isolation in a former whiskey distillery somewhere in Manchester’s suburbs, the tracks that form Dance Mania are to finally be heard after being locked away for the last decade. Now set to follow Rigelsford’s two accessibly experimental and widely acclaimed albums released in each of the previous two decades, an accompanying full album-length film will concrete-in the frequently used, critical terms ‘cinematic’ and ‘widescreen’ that have been connected to past Magic Arm projects.
The first that listeners heard of Dance Mania and Magic Arm on his return in May was 432, a brooding, darkly dramatic piece of electronic sound. Forming a swept cloak of ominous audio, the track sat at a right angle to Good Views Near North’s sense of wide-eyed wonder, conjuring the similar laid-back, tech-savvy guitar worlds of Beta Band and Grandaddy aided by Rigelsford’s easy-going vocals.
11 tracks lie in wait across almost 40 minutes of new music and directional soundscapes, with Good Views Near North’s widescreen video cut from the full-length, accompanying film created by visual collaborator, Dave Thacker. The purpose shot companion piece follows Magic Arm’s third album through its entirety, creating non-literal translations of its undulating moods, from freedom to claustrophobia and from nature to post-industrial decay.
Having released his debut album, Make Lists, Do Something in 2009 and being in purposeful retreat since his second album, Images Rolling (2013), what could be his final album represents both Magic Arm’s most personal work and most fully realised to date. The playfully titled Dance Mania is a comprehensive and cohesive journey as a whole, yet taken track-by-track it stands as a beautiful, dense and rewarding collection of ideas.
Working outside the structural norms of recording that often create structural norms in the recorded work, Magic Arm’s ‘lost’ album’s fabrication in the old distillery, next to a functioning, day-to-day Post Office preceded a total blackout in releasing or public appearance. Slowing down following his dual-label deal with Switchflicker Records and Peacefrog (Little Dragon, Jose Gonzales) and live outings with Grizzly Bear and Camera Obscura, the conventional music industry stalled as a vehicle for still burgeoning ideas.
With instruments tuned to 432 Hz, the album is purposely crafted to attune to its listeners, the frequency proven to fall easier on the human ear. Organic and manmade brush alongside each other throughout with guitars, hand-built percussion and vocals tangling with the barbed wires of synthetic sound and manipulated recording.
Coming into possession of a CD-R copy of the album, Thacker got to work creating the companion film for the album, also titled Dance Mania, while gathering a handful of collaborators to ensure that the album would, finally, be heard. Its long-awaited release emerges initially on digital and cassette formats as an independent release.
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My life is a soundtrack, i track my life through music, photography is my passion, my escape, my expression. Without both i have pieces missing, thankfully i’m blessed and get to combine both.
Born in Manchester, lived in Australia for 22 years where i was heavily involved in the Australian Music Industry, firstly in bands (Singer) and then managing bands (all original), I moved back to the UK, Wales specifically 10 years ago
