Six years is a long time in any band's life. So it's a feat that Guelph group the Magic managed to last that long without releasing so much as a single track. Thankfully, last month saw the release of their debut, Ragged Gold, after half a dozen years of toiling away in a studio.
"We were pretty picky," explains Evan Gordon, who forms the band's nucleus with his brother Geordie. "As we'd make a new song for the record, it would be exponentially better, so we'd have to go back and tighten up the old songs."
Selective ears weren't the only thing holding up the album's completion though; the sons of folk icon James Gordon, both brothers spent the last four years recording and touring with Islands. Evan is a veteran of both the Constantines and Royal City while Geordie did time in the Barmitzvah Brothers.
The group's genesis came from a series of demos Geordie had made using a synth and drum machine. "He came to me with this idea, 'I want to make a pop record,'" says Evan. "It kind of went from there."
They tinkered away on their own at first, with a laptop accompanying their early live performances. Eventually drummer Aaron Curtis and a pre-Evening Hymns Sylvie Smith were added to the live line-up and ended up performing on the record.
Their sporadic work schedule allowed them to gain perspective on their work, says Evan, as they'd add and subtract layers, Chinese Democracy-style, inserting weird sonic accents wherever they could. Evan credits the support of friends and colleagues keen to hear to the final product as the motivating factor behind seeing the project to completion. "At the time it seemed like more of a fantasy," he says, "but I was on board and now we're doing it."
"We were pretty picky," explains Evan Gordon, who forms the band's nucleus with his brother Geordie. "As we'd make a new song for the record, it would be exponentially better, so we'd have to go back and tighten up the old songs."
Selective ears weren't the only thing holding up the album's completion though; the sons of folk icon James Gordon, both brothers spent the last four years recording and touring with Islands. Evan is a veteran of both the Constantines and Royal City while Geordie did time in the Barmitzvah Brothers.
The group's genesis came from a series of demos Geordie had made using a synth and drum machine. "He came to me with this idea, 'I want to make a pop record,'" says Evan. "It kind of went from there."
They tinkered away on their own at first, with a laptop accompanying their early live performances. Eventually drummer Aaron Curtis and a pre-Evening Hymns Sylvie Smith were added to the live line-up and ended up performing on the record.
Their sporadic work schedule allowed them to gain perspective on their work, says Evan, as they'd add and subtract layers, Chinese Democracy-style, inserting weird sonic accents wherever they could. Evan credits the support of friends and colleagues keen to hear to the final product as the motivating factor behind seeing the project to completion. "At the time it seemed like more of a fantasy," he says, "but I was on board and now we're doing it."
