Photo Courtesy of secretnoteshows.com
Majical Cloudz’ most recent release was their 2013 album “Impersonator” and since then, the single “Savage.” They have also recently announced that they will be opening for Lorde on her North American tour, exposing themselves to a much larger audience than they have previously had access to. Vocalist Devon Welsh told Billboard, “I don’t think exposing your art to more people is ever a bad thing. Most, if not all of the people coming to the show will have probably never heard of us. The bright side of it is if ten percent of the people who come had a good time watching us play, that’s probably more people than have ever been interested before at a single show. Ten percent of ten thousand is still a thousand!” The band definitely dealt with the news of this impending exposure very wisely, by giving their single “Savage” to noise-mastermind Tim Hecker to remix it.
One of the best ways to promote yourself after news like that, when you are a band that works most efficiently in serenity so that a torrid psychological release may come about, is to allow a sound artist (such as Tim Hecker) to accentuate your original work. It seems that Majical Cloudz will not give way to the electronic dance music phenomenon that has been seizing masses of music fans, since Hecker’s remix remains fairly true to the agonizing original, while still adding colorful sound accents.
The original version of Majical Cloudz’ “Savage” (which you can see him perform live at Pitchfork Music Festival Paris) is very bare bones, maintaining steady piano throughout, with various whooshing and chorus echo sound effects between the lyrics of vocalist Devon Welsh. His words concern being inebriated in a multitude of ways and about all the terrible accidents that can occur while high are excruciating, but true to Majical Cloudz’ form.
The remix, which the band was pleased with, has generated much excitement for the upcoming tour with Lorde and for the potential debuting of a few new songs while on the tour as well. “We’re not done, but we’re not beginning either,” he told Billboard, of the new recordings. “I think we’re going to be finishing something up in the next few months, at the latest.” Welsh said of the remix, “I thought it was cool to have a noise musician or a sound artist do something with the song. I liked it because it’s not done in a dance music style — there’s no element of remixing it in the way that that word has traditionally been used.”