Magical, Beautiful has been playing shows since the Spring of 2006 with Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti; Black Moth Super Rainbow; Casiotone For The Painfully Alone; Phosphorescent; Parenthetical Girls; Dead Science; Loney, Dear; Nick Krgovich (No Kids); Head of Femur; Tim Kinsella; All Smiles and other good people. T. Thurston, M,B's songwriter and producer, has traveled a large swath of the world performing in other dudes' bands, but quit all that in 2008 to focus on his own vision. Magical, Beautiful's live lineup ranges in number from one to five, and in sound from tightly controlled synth/dub/pop to fully improvised space jams. Everything is always changing.
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Webster's defines 'Magical' as: "produced by or as if by magic" & also as "mysteriously
enchanting." Pretty exciting stuff! T. Thurston, a vegetarian for two years in high school,
certainly knows a thing or two about mysterious enchantment, if the three songs on the right
rockEP are any evidence, & they are, because he made the songs: with magic, yes, but also
delay pedals in addition to regular instruments & drums, both digital & actual. I say "with magic"
because how else could all those sounds be made by just one man? Beats me. In conclusion,
Webster's first definition (see above) also defines Magical, Beautiful, because Mr. Thurston
is as much a producer as a songwriter &/or musician, as he painstakingly distilled each of these
songs from a single one-hour synthesizer improvisation on a little multi-tracker. "Who are some
of your favorite producers?" I asked him, & he replied, "Lee Perry, Phil Elvrum, Teo Macero, the
dude from Can, Lloyd 'Bullwackie' Barnes, Brian Eno, Matt Anderson, Keith Hudson, Joe
Meek" in a low, beguiling voice, reminiscent of a young Orson Welles. In the same
conversation, he told me, wearing black pants & an orange, flowery shirt, & a fine straw hat,
"The melody of 'Wings In The Sky' was based on a Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan qawalli." I found this
fact extremely interesting, so I changed the subject to lyrics, & he said in response to that: "I
wrote everything on a weird Caribbean cruise with my family. It's all about the economic &
spiritual conflicts I felt traveling on such an ugly ship through such beautiful ocean," he said, in
a high, almost plaintively gorgeous voice, as if he were on the ship now, drinking a mojito as the
ship captain guested with the on-board steel band singing "Don't Worry, Be Happy" as sun-burnt
Midwesterners did the limbo & sang along like so many oceanic Bobby McFerrins. As I was lost
in this little movie of my mind (I briefly attended film school in the late 1990's), Thurston snapped
his fingers, & with a little 'poof' & a cloud of smoke, he was gone, leaving in his absence a
Magical & Beautiful melody from a neighboring fern. "Ahhhhhh", I thought, with breathless
bemusement: "He's done it again!" & then with a smile, & lower in both volume & pitch: "He's
done it again. Magical!"
- Owen Ashworth . May, 2008. Chicago, IL
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MYSPACE IS SERIOUSLY WACK. THIS TRUTH IS SELF-EVIDENT. GO TO IHEARANEWWORLD.COM , WHERE ALMOST ALL OF MAGICAL, BEAUTIFUL'S MUSIC CAN BE DOWNLOADED FOR FREE.
You can be Magical, Beautiful's myspace friend, you just can't see yourself listed or make any comments.
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Buy a hard copy of the "Right Rock b/w Wings In the Sky" maxi EP
Right Rock b/w Wings In The Sky & Luxury Liner on itunes
Right Rock b/w Wings In The Sky download at amazon
Right Rock b/w Wings In The Sky download at emusic
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the entire back catalog for free at ihearanewworld.com
