Songs for the End of the Day, 15th March from The New Magic and Greatfruit (both Norway)

Another huge flurry of releases today, so we’ll get on with reviewing a couple of them.

The New Magic (Norway) – Moving Sky (sample track from album Birds Eye View)

The New Magic is led by Martin van Houtum, bassist with Zenon, who were here a short time ago, with roots in the underground rock music of the 1970s, jazz and traditional folk music, to which they add lyrics on spiritual and philosophical questions.

So it should be of no surprise that The New Magic is equally a mélange of styles, in this case psych, ambient and jazz, and with a role reversal as Filip Zenon Ramberg fills in on drums with perhaps other members from that band joining in?

The sample track from their album should have been the title one, ‘Birds Eye View’, but at over 15 minutes it’s a bit long for a sampler.

Hence here is ‘Moving Sky’, a fine introduction where ambience and psych is concerned and with the added benefit of a vocal which sounds like Peter Gabriel from his early to mid-1980s era.

Then just when you’re settling into that it explodes into kaleidoscope of sound as ‘A whiter shade of pale’ meets ‘Lucy in the Sky with diamonds’ in a planetarium while you’re watching a film of the beginning of the universe through 3-D specs while nibbling on some magic mushrooms.

Perfect for a Friday night in, but we must move on. Also from Norway are,

Greatfruit (Norway) – Talked about it (single)

Greatfruit mention two names in their correspondence, namely Sondre and Sigurd, but there appears to be several other members and I have to say that they look a pretty wholesome bunch of folk.

‘Talked about it’ concerns “the fragility of love”. We’ve had quite a few songs on that subject recently and mainly deep, introspective, philosophical ones in which the performer has been fretting and questioning if their role in a break-up was something they should be beating themselves up for as they engage in self-gaslighting.

Greatfruit come at it from a different angle with plenty of floaty synth notes and a melody and beat which could be Boney M early on. It has a distinct 70s feel about it and for some reason the other band that came to mind was The Osmonds if anyone still remembers them.

Then it is enlivened by a fairly intricate bridge complete with some shredding, which Boney M and The Osmonds never did to my knowledge.

The message seems to be that at the end of the day they are made for each other, no-one else comes up to scratch and onwards and upwards they go. Aw, bless.

I don’t get to hear much of what I guess counts as mainstream pop in Norway these days, apart from a handful of female singer-songwriters, and I’m glad this one came past me because it’s pretty damn good.

Find them on:

(The New Magic)

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thenewmagicband