The Magic, a look back and a thrust in to the future...

Here at Half Machine we've been lucky enough to release some brilliant records over the past 7 years by bands that have gone on to bigger and better things, which pleases us no end. Real Estate released their debut album on Domino last year, Banjo or Freakout released his on Memphis Industries and two albums via Kompakt as part of Walls (who first met when we commissioned THIS remix), Woods continue to release amazing music via their own Woodsist label, MIT released their second album on V2 and so on.

Last year we released two albums - the second album by Floridian psych-pop band Holiday Shores (which you can hear in full HERE) and a reissue of 'The Ann Steel Album' by Roberto Cacciapaglia. If you're wondering what a 1979 bizarro pop record made by a left-field electronic composer who was an associate of Tangerine Dream and Popol Vuh sounded like, listen HERE.

We still have a handful of The Ann Steel Album reissue in our shop, along with a few other bits and pieces, including some Half Machine tote bags (fancy, I know). Check them out in our SHOP

We have two records coming up this year, the first of which is by Canadian pop alchemist's The Magic. 'Ragged Gold' is released worldwide on 25th June 2012, and is an effervescent pop record influenced by the joyful pop of Phoenix, the white funk of Talking Heads, the studio soul of Hall & Oates and a thousand weird European pop records. You can hear the debut single 'Mr Hollywood', a soulful disco pop hit about the double lives of closeted gay actors, such as Rock Hudson, HERE, alongside the mournful slow burning b-side 'Never Lock The Door'.

You can 'like' The Magic on Facebook, just head on over to them via this link - www.facebook.com/TheMagicOfficial - when they get to 500 likes (we were slow starters on the whole Facebook pages thing) we're going to pick 5 people at random to win a copy of their debut LP.

We'll tell you more on the second album we're releasing another time. It's very exciting and quite different to what we've done previously...

If you'd like to 'like' us on Facebook, you can do so here - facebook.com/halfmachinerecords