May 13, 2009

Album review: Magic Arm

Make Lists Do Something

7 / 10 We’re told it’d be an error to describe Manchester’s Magic Arm as a “laptop-folk troubadour” but, actually, it’d just be lazy. See, Marc Rigelsford’s debut album is the sound of one man mutilating his record collection via Pro Tools and an assortment of instruments; traversing genres and styles at will (like, say, Beck or The Beta Band) and having a lot of fun in the process. But not all the time: ‘Bootsy Bootsy’ harbours the lyric “Inside everyone, I hear the end, and that’s ominous”. Indeed. ‘Move Out’’s sleazy bleep-funk, meanwhile, sounds like the best MIA backing track you’ve never heard, while blues standard ‘Six Cold Feet Of Ground’ is reimagined as a haunting electro-ballad.

Rob Webb

More on this artist:
Magic Arm NME Artist Page
Magic Arm MySpace