Bright Magic: Vinyl LP

“Doing this felt inevitable, somehow,” muses J. Willgoose, Esq. “In my head, it was whirring and pulsing away for a long time, even before Every Valley - this fascinating, contrary, seductive place. I knew the album was going to be about the city, and its history and myths, and I was going to move there. So it’s quite a personal story. It’s become an album about moving to Berlin to write an album about people who move to Berlin to write an album…”

Though PSB’s use of electronics and surging guitar rock remain familiar, Bright Magic uses samples, and the English language, sparingly. It differs from their previous albums in other ways: less linear and narrative, instead it’s an impressionistic portrait of a city from the ground up. A Eureka moment of sorts came in November 2018 when Willgoose heard Walter Ruttmann’s radical Berlin tape-artwork Wochenende (or Weekend), which is sampled on three of Bright Magic’s tracks. Created in 1928, the piece collaged speech, field recordings and music into a sonic evocation of the city. Resolving to integrate these long-gone fragments with new manipulated sound sources, he set about making his own Wochenende, a narrative drama for the ears which decodes and realises the dreams of Berlin he’d constructed in his mind. 

1. Der Sumpf (Sinfonie der Großstadt)
2. Im Licht
3. Der Rhythmus der Maschinen [feat. Blixa Bargeld]
4. People, Let's Dance [feat. EERA]
5. Blue Heaven [feat. Andreya Casablanca]
6. Gib mir das Licht [feat. EERA]
7. The Visitor
8. Lichtspiel I: Opus
9. Lichtspiel II: Schwarz Weiss Grau
10. Lichtspiel III: Symphonie Diagonale
11. Ich und die Stadt [feat. Nina Hoss]