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Please Note: Magic Dirt do not run this myspace. I'm just a fan that really likes them and is trying to spread the word. Though if the band ever decides they want to take over, that's fine by me.
There's a time for dangling dangerously from the end of your sonic tether, a time for surfing the infinite galaxy of white noise, a time for exploring the wildest, darkest possibilities of electricity. But even on the most intrepid musical sojourn, there comes a time to cut to the chase.
You know in the cartoons where someone sticks their hand into someone's ribcage and pulls their heart right out of their chest?" asks Magic Dirt's singer and chief songwriter, Adalita. "This record is like that. Emotionally, lyrically, musically, this record goes straight in there."
Tough Love is the fourth album from Geelong's always compelling, never compromising electric guitar voyagers, Magic Dirt. Like its predecessor of '00, What Are Rock Stars Doing Today?, it's an explosive dose of power pop that scrams 10 years of intense passion and experience into 45 minutes of ragged chords and razor sharp lyrics.
"Rock Stars opened the floodgates for a new phase in music for us," says Adalita. "For me, something from the subconscious broke through: a love of melody, a love of crafting a good song, a desire to sharpen the focus and neaten up the production. That really surfaced in a big way."
Guitarist Raul Sanchez: "If you spend your first seven years doing exploratory feedback noise stuff, what else is there to explore? For us, Rock Stars was the most experimental thing we'd ever done. We were pushing ourselves really hard; it was a huge learning curve. We had to rethink what we did, our roles in the band, where we were going..."
After a top five tenure on the ARIA Alternative Charts, three high-impact singles (including the Triple J Hottest 100 smash, Dirty Jeans), and two years touring Rock Stars at home, Europe and Japan, Tough Love confirms Magic Dirt's new direction and steps on the accelerator.
Adalita, Raul, bassist Dean Turner and drummer Adam Robertson recorded Tough Love at Melbourne's Birdland studios with producer Lindsay Gravina (The Birthday Party, The Living End), who'd collaborated on Magic Dirt's earliest EPs of '94, Signs of Satanic Youth and Life Was Better.
"Lindsay's approach to recording is completely different," says Raul. "With Rock Stars, Phil (Vinall, producer) got us to heap on as much as we could, layer after layer after layer, then later, when you're mixing, you chop it down and piece it together.
"This record is very distilled. We had a clear vision of how every song would sound from the earliest recording stage. 'What's that part doing there? Is it necessary?' If not, it went out the window."
The final piece in the tight-fitting puzzle was modern rock studio demigod Adam Kasper, who was on board Tough Love from the moment he heard the demos. The man behind the latest Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters, QOTSA, Nirvana and Cat Power albums had the perfect ears to take Magic Dirt's renowned guitar front line to the next level.
The result is an album of brash power, tender emotions and immediate melodies. The first single, Watch Out Boys, sets a new benchmark for Magic Dirt's edgy guitar textures and runaway pop momentum and Plastic Loveless Letter takes the glorious pop principle to a previously unthinkable high.
Tough Love links Magic Dirt's experimental past to a fearlessly accessible present: Vulcanella's stream-of-consciousness urgency and the seven-minute rollercoaster ride of Brat recall their trippy avant garde beginnings. The aching Tee Vee strips it all down to pure heart and melody - and who could have predicted the mesmerising beauty of the climactic piano piece, The Kiss?
"A lot of the songs are about love and relationships. Love, passion, desire… it's all about the self, really, reflecting all that back on yourself and how you feel when you're in love, what happens to you. Hopefully it's symbolic or archetypal enough for everyone to relate to it. Cause that's the point of music, the sense that you're sharing those feelings."
Small wonder Tough Love features the most naked, effective and plain gorgeous singing of Adalita's career. "It's weird how my voice has changed, isn't it?" she muses. "This record was really hard to sing, emotionally. I was pushing myself so hard but somehow, through it all, I sang the songs. There's a big wall of emotion behind those vocals."
Magic Dirt have seen too many shooting stars and road miles to be greatly influenced by the current garage rock renaissance, but "being surrounded by electric guitars again" made for a timely counterpoint to Adalita's emotional outpouring.
"My main influence this time was the sound of the guitar," says Raul. "I love it when a guitar sounds like what it is, which is a piece of wood with wires on it. I stripped back a lot of effects and just went for the basics: distortion, overdrive and good amps."
Between the wires and the heartstrings: that's where Tough Love lives.
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