In order of membership length: Tyson; Charlie; Nick; Alance. Also has/will? include others.
Influences
Luie Luie; 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/Ebullition Records; Yes; Man Is The Bastard; Joe Meek; Teo Macero; J Dilla; Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan & his qawwal friends; Kate Bush; Miighty Flashlight; Emahoy Tsegue Maryam Gebrou; Joanna Newsom; Suicide; California the state; Caribbean the sea; holy spirit; religion; Animal Collective live; Pulp; Andrew WK live; love love love; dreams; THE CLASH; Joy Division & Martin Hannett; Scientist; Claude "the bod" Debussy; Brian Eno's 70's productions; contemporary electronic records by various, faceless producers; Lloyd Barnes!; my friends
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Magical Beautiful has been playing shows and making hit records since the Spring of 2006. Tyson Torstensen, MB's songwriter and producer, has traveled a large swath of the world performing in other dudes' bands, but quit doing that in 2008 to focus on his own vision. Other people help him with that, and in the past Magical, Beautiful's live lineup has ranged in number from one to five, and in sound from psychedelic synth/dub/pop to fully improvised space jams. As of 2009, the lineup has solidified as a four-piece playing: voices; electric piano; organ; baritone guitar; drumset; drum-machine; synth; melodica; trombone; sampler; mixing board & various effects. The sound has settled into a patented blend of dubbed-out, hypnagogic psych pop.
****MAGICAL BEAUTIFUL NO LONGER HAS A COMMA IN ITS NAME!
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Magical Beautiful has been pleased to perform with: Anti-Pop Consortium; John Maus; Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti; Chairlift; Phosphorescent; Blk Jks; The Donkeys; Antimagic; the mighty Michael Columbia; many shows w/ Casiotone For The Painfully Alone; the talented Katie Stelmanis; Golden Birthday; Starfucker; Bobby Conn; The Dead Science; Pillars & Tongues; Black Moth Super Rainbow; All Smiles; Tirra Lirra; Loney Dear; Parenthetical Girls and the young genius Nick Krgovich!
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Webster's defines 'Magical' as: "produced by or as if by magic" & also as "mysteriously
enchanting." Pretty exciting stuff! Tyson Torstensen, 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. Torstensen
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), Torstensen 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.
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...
