ASMR

On Monday, I was at The Burdock for a show. A bit early in the week, but The Magic, manned by two brothers, don't play in Toronto too often. It became an evening of intense experience. First up was Joyful Joyful who combined gospel and spiritual lyrics with a shoe-gaze soundscapes of repeating and echoing samples. Is drone-folk a genre? During one of the numbers, the overlapping frequencies generated literal shivering chills in my back. I sat there frozen while having a physical reaction to the music. It was deeply unpleasant, though not because the song was bad, and I'm not sure I want to experience that again.

The Magic is like Bahamas times two. They mined the same retro-funk sound complete with male falsetto singing. The audience was ripe to boogie with songs like If I Were U. They also debut new unrecorded songs such as When You Leave. This number was apparently a failed attempt to sell a pop song to another artist. But given its odd melodic and time changes, it would have been too weird for Top 40 radio. These brothers make fun, danceable music. I'm set to enjoy the rest of the week, even if real-life isn't as funky as their songs.