59. The Magic Numbers

Rough Trade East

18 August 2014

If the Magic Numbers had stumbled out of a sun-drenched Laurel Canyon commune wearing flower crowns and speaking only in harmonies, no one would’ve blinked. Two sets of siblings? Harmonising like they were raised by a record player and a strict regime of organic granola? It all screamed The Mamas and The Papas, if the Mamas and the Papas had been homeschooled in a yurt and possibly indoctrinated into a soft-rock cult.

When their debut album dropped, it didn’t so much arrive as descend; a warm, golden-hour shimmer of indie-folk-pop that sounded like it had been beamed down from a benevolent mothership staffed entirely by kindly hippies and second-hand tambourines. But something was always slightly off. For all its sweetness, it had a faint whiff of unease, like these were the tunes playing on loop in the lift of the Overlook Hotel. Sunny, yes, but the kind of sunshine you suspect might be hiding a body in the tool shed.

So when the band rolled into Rough Trade for the launch of their new record Alias, gone was the sparkle of their debut. In its place, a sort of awkward fumbling toward moodiness. It wasn’t bad, exactly. Just... unsure of itself. Like an indie-pop band trying on edgier trousers two sizes too big, tripping slightly, but insisting they’re fine, thank you. Still, when they broke into Forever Lost, that glimmer returned. Collective nostalgia kicked in like a well-timed antidepressant. Heads nodded. Feet tapped. It was enough to forgive the foggy detour through tonal whiplash.

Afterwards, the band were charm itself, graciously signing merch and chatting. I walked away with a signed LP, the price of admission to these in-store rituals. And there it still sits, untouched, unplayed, perfectly preserved. Less a treasured artefact, more a shrine to a band that once flirted with indie greatness before quietly melting into a polite, harmonised fog.