The Oberlin Review
<< Front page News September 24, 2004

Innovative folk at the Cat

New York state of mind: White Magic displays their unique, indie-fused folk at the Cat in the Cream last Thursday.
 

The Brooklyn trio White Magic played for a large audience last Thursday at the Cat in the Cream. The band’s debut EP, Through the Sun Door, was released just this past May on Drag City, and my impression was that few members of the audience knew much about the band other than the fact that (as flyers testified) they’ve toured with Sonic Youth. Most people are more likely to be familiar with the band members’ previous projects, like Quix*o*tic and Ida.

Opening up for the band was Oberlin’s own folk music throwback, The Fancy Boys. The exuberance with which they threw themselves into songs so far removed from their own time was charming. Their songs were loose but well executed and were well received by the audience. Although their brand of folk was much different than White Magic’s, they were a fitting choice for an opener as they also represented the mix-and-match aesthetic of new folk music. Nowhere was this more evident than in their final song, a cover of Leadbelly’s “Good Night Irene,” which they transformed from a creepy murder ballad to a tender lament for unrequited love.

Although relatively new, White Magic is part of a burgeoning music scene that is creating some incredibly innovative and interesting folk music. This scene includes Drag City label-mate Joanna Newsom, Devendra Banhart, Six Organs of Admittance and even the The No-Neck Blues Band. The thing with folk music is that it has a long and convoluted past, enabling all of these groups to find their own individual niche while still managing to fit under the broader umbrella of the genre. While Joanna Newsom channels older ballad singers like Texas Gladden, Six Organs of Admittance revive Robbie Basho’s finger picked ragas. The result is exciting but overwhelming, a multiplicity of sounds all pointing to the same signifier.

White Magic certainly manages to carve out their own place among their peers. The influence of Karen Dalton is clearly evident in singer Mira Billotte’s phrasing, yet the openness and repetitiveness in the music also points towards eastern influences. Still, you could easily say they were an indie band; their indebtedness to Cat Power and Sonic Youth is equally self-evident.

Unfortunately, the uniqueness of White Magic’s sound didn’t translate well live. A good deal of this had to with the fact that they simply sounded muddy. The guitar was overpowering, which is quite the opposite of what you hear on their record, while Mira Billotte’s vocals were low down in the mix. The blame shouldn’t fall on the sound techs but on White Magic’s guitar player. Apparently, the guitarist ditched the rest of the band during the sound check, which would explain why he sounded like a jerk.

Still, the band made the best of their circumstances and played a very strong set. The piano and drums locked in to create an entrancing drone while Billotte’s voice, though barely intelligible, offered a counter melody that amplified the drone while occasionally breaking free, pushing the song forward to its next section. The show definitely got stronger towards the end, culminating in a cover of Otis Redding’s “I Love You More Than Words Can Say.” Sadly, the crowd was greatly diminished by the end of the set. I’ll just hazard a guess and attribute that to the Cat’s sore lack of a ventilation system.
 
 

   

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