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Young Magic

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137

Listen to night in the ocean

This is a beautiful story. Three vagabonds travel across the world with no direction home, record music whilst on the road, meet up in New York City, and form a band.

Drawing a symbiotic balance from the soundtracks of West Africa, Turkey and beyond, Brainfeeder hip-hop, UK Bass and 60s psychedelic soul, Young Magic is an ethereal exploration into past and future.

Appearing at Iceland’s Airwaves festival in October 2011, New York’s CMJ festival in the same month and touring as main support for Youth Lagoon throughout America and Canada this November, Young Magic’s sound is spreading far and wide in the lead up to the release of their debut album Melt on Carpark Records February 14th 2012.

Young Magic began with singer and producer Isaac Emmanuel. In early 2010 he quit his world and left his hometown in Australia with all of his belongings packed into a suitcase. He wandered through northern Europe, across the UK, over to New York City then down to Mexico, recording with a microphone, his voice and whatever instruments he would find along the way. There were no plans, no accommodation: instead, couch surfing with friends, always low on coin, always high on the thrill of it all.

Whilst living in a small Mexican town called Tepoztlan, Isaac had been in touch with an old friend from Melbourne who was on his own world adventure, Michael Italia. A musician and photographer who was also traveling around the world with little more than a backpack, and some portable recording gear, producing sounds to document the journey. He found himself drifting across Southern Europe and the UK, and eventually hitchhiking across South America. Volunteering wherever he could in exchange for food and accommodation, he spent months on the road writing and recording material for what would later make up part of the Young Magic record.

Back in New York, Indonesian born Melati Malay was making beautifully wistful songs, ghost spirits caressing perfectly still bodies. The Brooklyn based vocalist had met Isaac and Michael a few years earlier, and they immediately shared a common love of sounds with an eternal rhythm, big and delicate, sounds that help you drift up and off, sounds to make your heart and head melt in equal measure. In early 2011 the three landed back in NY and rented a space above an illegal 1920s cabaret venue in Brooklyn. For the first time, they were becoming a band. They started recording together, collaborating and pulling all the pieces together like a puzzle ~ a collection of sounds and common experiences from the last year.

Releasing a series of limited edition 7” records in 2011, the band’s debut full-length album Melt is set for release on February 14th 2012 through Carpark Records.

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