5words

RIP Magic have wasted no time. In their first year, they’ve been dubbed “London’s buzziest band” by The Guardian, played big shows with LCD Soundsystem and Fcukers and tiny ones in London bars and restaurant basements, and now they finally release a physical single, produced by James Murphy, his first production for another band in over a decade. “5words” builds slowly into a euphoric urban epic, sounding equally indebted to the Velvet Underground, Orbital, Echoes-era Rapture, and the Dean Blunt cinematic universe, and, honestly, Nirvana. It sounds like decades collapsing into the present, enabled by frictionless discovery and resolved through the simplest method: four people in a room searching for something new, something great, a good feeling. The b-side features a remix by none other than Maurice Fulton, his first DFA credit since those Syclops records became instant classics in 2008. Maurice is one of the greatest remixers and producers of his era and architect of a sound so singular and identifiable that even all his pseudonyms can’t fool the trainspotters. This one is just the type: thrillingly off-center and unavoidably banging.