Pitchfork

A few years ago, I read a message board thread that asked if there was a band that felt like a combination of Boards of Canada and the Sundays. Someone suggested Piano Magic, which made some sense. No matter what cast of characters surrounds Piano Magic's Glen Johnson on a given record, he has a knack for organically incorporating technology and sound processing to compliment the songs, which are typically gentle, sometimes ethereal, and always dour.

If that BoC + Sundays idea once felt vaguely true, the four-song Opencast Heart EP confirms it. A sticker on the outside of the CD quotes Johnson as saying this the most electronic record has made, and who am I to argue? I certainly don't hear identifiable guitars or other conventional instruments. Actually, I don't hear much of anything-- this is an unusually subtle and quiet record, with most tracks consisting of some ghostly synth drifts and perhaps one or two slow percussion sounds. The lone exception is "The Heart Machinery", which-- while not exactly a burner-- rises to mid-tempo and has Johnson doing a neu-romantic croon at the upper end of his range, suggesting a contemporary affinity with Junior Boys or Styrofoam. Beyond that, you'll need snowshoes to negotiate one of Piano Magic's most wintry landscapes.

"Echoes on Ice" sets the mercury falling, with some barely-there chord wisps and slight crackles of static to back the hushed whispers of rotating member Angéle David-Gillou. "Echoes on ice on a blue winter night," she sings, "from the spikes of your bike in sub-Fahrenheit." Brrrrr. Her voice is suddenly thrown into reverse for the last couplet, ending the song on a haunting note. "The Journal of a Disappointed Man" is one of Johnson's spoken-word-over-soundscape pieces, and not a bad one as those go, though these ultimately have little replay value. Lines like "I took a position at the Natural History Museum, but left after only three months due to allergies" show he can have a chuckle at himself, at least.

Best of all is the dry, minimal, and lovely "I Didn't Get Where I Am Today", which starts with David-Gillou saying she "stayed home, snowed in" and ends with "the only light's a cigarette, the bed feels cold as ice." Appropriately, she harmonizes with herself, alone to the end. After so much inconsistency, Piano Magic sounds best in small doses, and this tight unified EP shows that Johnson is still capable of creating interesting records.