Keith Hudson; Windy & Carl; OMD; Burning Spear; Arthur Russell, Born Again$t; Lindsey Buckingham; Neil Young; mid-late 70's Bowie; The Wailers; Horace Andy; Depeche Mode; Phil Elverum; Edvard Grieg, P.I. Tchaikovsky; S. Rachmaninov; Dr. Dre; Black Dice; Junior Murvin; Lee 'Scratch' Perry; Gravity Records; Yes; Man Is The Bastard; Joe Meek; Teo Macero; J Dilla; Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan & his qawwal friends; Kate Bush; Miighty Flashlight
Webster's defines Magical as: "produced by or as if by magic" and also "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 Rock b/w Wings In The Sky feat. Luxury Liner EP are any evidence, and they are, because he made the songs: with magic, yes, but also delay pedals in addition to regular instruments and drums, both digital and 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 thinks of himself as much a producer as a songwriter and/or musician, as he painstakingly distilled each of these songs on a little multi-tracker from a single one-hour improvisation. "Who are some of your favorite producers?" I asked him, and he replied, "Lee Perry, Phil Elverum, Teo Macero, the dude from Can, J Dilla, Lloyd Barnes, Brian Eno, Matt Anderson" in a low, beguiling voice, reminiscent of a young Orson Welles. In the same conversation, he told me, wearing black pants and an orange, flowery shirt, and a fine straw hat, "The melody of 'Wings In The Sky' was based on my favorite Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan qawalli." I found this fact extremely interesting, so I changed the subject to lyrics, and he said in response to that: "I wrote everything on a weird family cruise of the Caribbean. It's about the spiritual conflicts I felt travelling on this big, ugly ship through such a 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 and 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, and with a little "poof" and a cloud of smoke, he was gone, leaving in his absence a Magical and Beautiful melody from a neighboring fern. "Ahhhhhh", I thought, with breathless bemusement: "He's done it again!" and then with a smile, and lower in both volume and 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 our "friends".
Woah dude! What a thoroughly impressive record! Very colourful... Very dramatic... I'd say, "very magical," but I'd hate to reiterate the word... You should write operas... I dare you...
