This is an alternate version of the album cover painting. This one as well as the version we used were painted by my friend Alexandre Brazeau. My roommate Erik and I came up with the design, and Alex made an amazing painting. Thanks Alex! :)
(Source: alexandrebratz)
Turns Turns Turns is back up on iTunes through Arbutus Records, so I’m going to leave it up on Bandcamp then take it down around midnight! So if you want it for free download it tonight! :)
Anonymous asked: hello, what's been the best show thus far?
So many shows have been good for so many different reasons. From the beginning of the band we have never really been concerned with the size of the crowd, or how nice the venue is, or where we are, or anything else like that. One of my favourite shows was played for two people.
The two best shows for me on the tour with Autre Ne Veut were San Francisco and Los Angeles.
In SF my mother, her boyfriend, and lots of friends from the Bay Area came out. The crowd was really responsive, and it just felt natural. I was really happy that night.
In LA I was kind of mentally exhausted and was not in a very good mood and was stressed out about all kinds of superficial touring stuff, and then when I was standing around in the venue my mother’s ex-husband walked in. He’s one of my heroes and has been one of the most positive influences I’ve ever had in my life. I hadn’t seen or communicated with him in a few years, and seeing him was really overwhelming. I went into the back and cried and everything else that I was worried about completely washed away — all that mattered after that was being able to show him my music and perform. So I was grateful that he showed up, and although it was not as warm of an experience as SF, it was more deeply moving.
This is a photo from the show I described above. My friend Dan Casey (who makes music as Yalls) was also there and took this photo!
This is a short video of the first time I played any of the material that became the songs on Impersonator. This is the first time I ever played “Turns Turns Turns”. The show was in Oakland, CA in early March, 2011 at my friend Dylan Travis’ house — his band Some Ember also played. I had been living in Oakland and this was the last day of my time there before moving back to Montreal. Since Some Ember were leaving for SXSW, and I had been working on a bunch of songs, we decided to play a show.
What could be considered the first “proper” Majical Cloudz show happened about two weeks later in Toronto, ON when myself and Matt opened for Grimes and Born Gold.
So this is the “pre-Majical Cloudz” performance of a few of the songs we ended up recording. It’s funny how even playing the songs for the first time, something about them felt very natural and full of possibility. After this show I moved back to Montreal without any real idea of how to proceed, but I knew Matt and I were going to make something that we could really believe in.
-I was very nervous
-the outfit I was wearing thereafter became my default wardrobe
-I had hair
-I wore a wristwatch in those days
Thanks to Dylan and Nina for the video!! :)
For the people that have asked about why Turns Turns Turns is not available online. I don’t know why, but until it’s back up in some other way it will be up on our Bandcamp to download. It’s up there now and the link is below. Thanks!
http://majicalcloudz.bandcamp.com/album/turns-turns-turns-ep
ericlefrench asked: Hi! The Turns Turns Turns EP isn't available to buy digitally in Canada (it isn't on iTunes and the Rough Trade store doesn't seem to work). Is there a chance you could release on bandcamp or in some other way?
To be completely honest, I’m not entirely sure why the EP is not available digitally in Canada right now. There have been some changes with the digital distribution of Arbutus Records so all of their releases were temporarily taken down, but some are back up whereas others (the TTT EP) are not back up yet. I’m trying to figure it out now, and if nothing seems like it’s going to change it will be up on our Bandcamp for download soon! :)
This is the video for “Childhood’s End”, directed by Emily Kai Bock and starring my father, Kenneth Welsh.
Emily and I have known each other for a long time, going back to the days of Lab.Synthese, which was the venue she lived in and ran with Sebastian Cowan, Alex Cowan and others. I have been a fan of her video work for a long time so I was thrilled that she was interested in collaborating with myself and Matt.
I have been present at two of her other video shoots (for Grimes’ “Oblivion” and Solar Year’s “Brotherhood”) so it was an unfortunate but ironic twist of fate that we were on tour during the filming of this video. As a result, some of the details of its production are a mystery to me, but it makes it all the more fascinating for me to watch. My sincere gratitude goes out to Emily, Bobby Shore and everyone else involved in the production. It’s a truly cinematic video and we are honoured to have our song as the soundtrack.
I’m also very grateful to have a video that features my father Kenneth Welsh, who is a very accomplished actor and who has spent decades acting for the stage, film & television. His career has been a long one but you may know him best from the television show Twin Peaks. His performance in the video is very moving and I’m mostly just really happy to be able to collaborate with him in some way (this is not the first time he has collaborated with Majical Cloudz, as he played the flute and trumpet on two early recordings back in 2010).
Matt and I are both really happy and excited about the positive reaction to “Childhood’s End”. It’s always a strange experience to make a deeply personal song and then release it into the world and play it for lots of different people during tours. Even though it gains a whole other significance by becoming part of who we are as a band, it still remains incredibly personal on some level. So it’s great that other people can get something out of it too!
I was going to write a whole other paragraph here offering my convoluted interpretation of the video and its relation to the narrative of the song, but then I realized: I’ve already written way too much!
Thanks!
Dream Song 14 by John Berryman
Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn,
and moreover my mother told me as a boy
(repeatingly) ‘Ever to confess you’re bored
means you have no
Inner Resources.’ I conclude now I have no
inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
Peoples bore me,
literature bores me, especially great literature,
Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes
as bad as achilles,
who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.
And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag
and somehow a dog
has taken itself & its tail considerably away
into mountains or sea or sky, leaving
behind: me, wag.
atlityam asked: hi majical cloudz
hi
Hello!
We can now officially say that we are releasing an album with Matador Records. It’s called Impersonator, and it will be out May 21st.
This is the tracklist (album artwork is above):
1. Impersonator
2. This Is Magic
3. Childhood’s End
4. I Do Sing For You
5. Mister
6. Turns Turns Turns
7. Silver Rings
8. Illusion
9. Bugs Don’t Buzz
10. Notebook
These are the songs myself and Matt thought were best after a year of playing shows, working on recordings, and shaping Majical Cloudz as a project.
Of the two singles from our EP, one is on the album and one is not. “What That Was” is a song I had written that wasn’t intended to be part of Majical Cloudz until myself and Matt recorded a new version of it and decided we should release it. At the time of its release we hadn’t played it live, and stylistically it stood apart from the tone of our live performances. For that reason we thought it was better to leave it off the album.
“Turns Turns Turns” is a song that we have been playing live since we started performing together. It grew as a song in proximity to the other songs on the album, and for that reason we feel that by necessity it should be included, even though it has been on the internet for a while. This will make sense to everyone who has been watching us perform since the early shows.
We are also releasing the first single off the album, a song called “Childhood’s End” . Even though the songs on the album are very personal, I don’t think it’s useful or interesting to explain the lyrics. The words should speak for themselves — people can interpret them how they will and form their own meanings and relationships.
That said, “Childhood’s End” is a song about friendship, growing up and apart, processing a person’s death. I hope it’s less cheesy than all that sounds though, haha.
It’s also probably the most prominent use of drums on the album (besides Turns Turns Turns) — so this isn’t necessarily indicative of the rest of the album’s sound.
(Re: drums: when me and Matt were recording the song we discovered that adding a 4/4 kick underneath the song turns it into a pseudo-reggaeton beat. Just in case you were curious.)
You can download an MP3 here.
I’m going to be using this Tumblr to post music, photos, and text — so follow me if you’re interested in that. I have a lot to learn and will be hard at work studying the Tumblr accomplishments of deadgirlfriends.tumblr.com, actuallygrimes.tumblr.com, tonjethilesen.tumblr.com, monogamie.tumblr.com, neilcorcoran.tumblr.com, and others.
Also, an amazing video for Childhood’s End will be coming out soon!
Okay thanks! We’re really excited to be releasing this album!
Devon
