Magic Trick

Magic Trick

Other Man's Blues

Empty Cellar

Empty Cellar is proud to release the newest album by Magic Trick, Other Man’s Blues—written and recorded while songwriter Tim Cohen split his time between two lives and two worlds, a horse ranch with his newborn daughter, and on tour or at Phil Manley’s Lucky Cat Studios in San Francisco. A book of songs Cohen had written while bouncing to and fro sufficed in lieu of rehearsal time with the thirteen other musicians who appear on the tracks: James Kim and James Barone (Beach House) on drums; Alicia Van Heuvel (Aislers Set) and Paul Garcia on bass; Joel Robinow (Once and Future Band / Danny James) on keys; Emmett Kelly (The Cairo Gang / The Muggers) on guitar; and omnipresent vocal harmonies from Alicia, Noelle Cahill and Anna Hillburg. The album is a loose, largely improvised affair, with many guest appearances and stop-ins. Allegedly tequila was centrally involved. It’s the principle that gave this project a name five years ago. Especially in this case, the players on the album define what shapes these songs take. A ghostly choir of female voices opens the album like a séance, with the spirit they conjure flitting about the ensuing ten tracks, from the baroque pop of “Forest of Kates” to the icy post-punk of “I Held the Ring.” There’s the air-tight R&B groove of “Startling Chimes,” the krauty “Purest Thing,” a jammy side-to-side trot that moves “First Thought” along, taking a detour into country before culminating in a glorious Grateful Dead-indebted coda. Throughout,...

Magic Trick

Half Man Half Machine

Spiritual Pajamas

“Sound structure or randomness will fill the mind with a certain primal need for an evolution that inherently limits the imagination. Half Man Half Machine, the latest Magic Trick release, builds and then explores a sonic landscape that is constantly in bloom. Whether it be in the slipstream and eddying of triumphant washes of melody, in the serpentining elegance of percussive brambles, or in the perseverance of the laconic lilt, woven upon revelations of transcendence and frailty from the mouth of Tim Cohen, one is invited into a landscape that shifts and grows based on its own ulterior nature...and one must only listen to find it for themselves. Listen to the kalimba, metronome, cymbal washes, shaker rattles, mercurial guitars, raga feel, glockenspiel, low-frequency rumble, subtle synthesizer, tabla loops; listen to the glowing of pride, the soft self-consciousness, the deflecting surrealism of your guide’s tongue; let yourself feel swept in its sonic orgy of change and realization; there is form for you to hold, there is path for you to plant, you must allow these sounds, these stories, to envelop your senses, you must let them wash through you, guide you to the structure that looms elusive under the roar—it is trying to tell you something and you have no choice but to feel and listen to the tapestry enveloping you, inviting you into its myriad and continually growing current and unknown direction. One must listen closely to this record, there is a chemistry of sound and creativity, perched at its...

Magic Trick

River Of Souls

Empty Cellar

***River of Souls is the third enchantment from the hat of TIM COHEN (THE FRESH AND ONLYS) and his band, MAGIC TRICK. Picking up from where he left us with Ruler of the Night (Hardly Art), Cohen brings us ten new intimate tracks, polished as yet unseen. Recorded in The Tree House, his attic studio, River of Souls whirls with parables of change amidst emotional flotsam and jetsam. Insecurities, sarcasm, escapism, optimism, vanity, honesty, and bona fide love… it is all there, but in comforting form. Tim’s well-skewed pop songs remind us that things can always be better, but also that what we have is pretty amazing. River of Souls signals a new approach for Magic Trick. As in The Fresh and Onlys, Tim has begun to distinguish his muses from those of the foggy San Francisco lo-fi movement that he helped to shape. Mixed at Lucky Cat Studios with PHIL MANLEY and mastered by PAUL OLDHAM, this album exudes presence and confidence. Now, more than ever, the vocals break through the clouds, and the mix champions the artistry in each player’s performance. Tim’s baritone spars with angelic female chants (NOELLE CAHILL and ALICIA VANDEN HEUVEL) over the crisp unmistakable pulse of JAMES KIM’’s drums throughout. San Francisco’s gifted guitar workhorse, TOM HEYMAN, channels Mark Knopfler; one-man metal mystery, STEVE PEACOCK, brings the right kind of shred; and MARC CAPPELLE’s horns retort the melodies, as Tim jettisons his woes upriver. It is clear with each downbeat the band has honed...

Magic Trick

Glad Birth Of Love

Empty Cellar

***NOW AVAILABLE ON CD!!! Empty Cellar records is proud to announce the latest full-length album by TIM COHEN (FRESH & ONLYS), The Glad Birth of Love. This is Tim Cohen's fourth album following his 2009 debut, The Two Sides of Tim Cohen (Empty Cellar), and two full-lengths (Laugh Tracks / Tim Cohen's Magic Trick) and one EP (Bad Blood) on New York's Captured Tracks label.  Featuring guest appearances by JOHN DWYER (THEE OH SEES), GRACE COOPER (SANDWITCHES), DIEGO GONZALEZ (GONG, CITAY, JONAS REINHARDT, DRY SPELLS), JOE ROBERTS (BLACK FICTION), AMBER LAMPRECHT (RODRIGUEZ BAND), and STEVE PEACOCK, The Glad Birth of Love is the first Tim Cohen album to not directly bear his name, but the name of his band, MAGIC TRICK. Recorded in a tower at Tim Cohen's home this album marks a departure from his signature radio-ready song craft. The Glad Birth of Love is a 45 minute album composed of four epic long-form compositions saturated with Tim's uncanny pop sensibilities and vivid lyrical imagery. Transitioning seamlessly from sparse acoustic blues, to dense psychedelic bass & oud ragas, to lush layered vocal harmonies this album is a culmination of Tim's work to date. (STREET DATE - 8/23/2011)