FRICTION NYC

I remember the first time I saw Brooklyn’s White Magic when they opened for The Fiery Furnaces nearly two years ago at The Bowery Ballroom. Leaving the show, I was more impressed with White Magic than the headliners, partly due to the beautiful voice of lead singer Mira Billotte. The Through The Sun Door EP ended up being one of my favorites that year, and the band’s aptly titled follow-up, Dat Rosa Mel Apibus (Latin for “The Rose Gives The Bees Honey”), is poised to be the same.

The band’s first full-length evokes the beauty and imagery of autumn’s end, dark cloudy skies shadowing bare trees with the very last of autumn’s leaves clinging desperately to a few of the branches. If one could actually live inside a work of art, Van Gogh’s “Country Road” would be the perfect setting for “The Light” as Billote’s haunting vocals swim and swirl throughout the barren landscape and abrubt piano arrangements like an otherworldly spirit conjuring up feelings of loneliness and self-observation.

Check out “The Light” below and head over to the band’s MySpace page for some more tracks. Unfortunately, I was out of town over the weekend and missed White Magic’s record release party on Friday at Syrup Room.

Dat Rosa Mel Apibus is out tomorrow (11/14) via Drag City.

White Magic  ”The Light”