Piano Magic - The troubled sleep of ghost-rock

Piano Magic is the now almost decade-long musical incarnation of the complex figure of English guitarist Glen Johnson, who in his frequent productions has always surrounded himself with more or less occasional collaborators (at least thirty of them can be counted), up to the not-quite-definitive settling into a proper band, which took place with the album The Troubled Sleep Of Piano Magic. Just as the collaborators have often changed, so too has Johnson's compositional attitude and musical sensibility frequently shifted, as he has moved through different styles and expressions over the years, all nonetheless united by a solid wave foundation, rooted in the broad spectrum of English productions of the Eighties, from the dark hues of early Cure to the dreamy tones of Cocteau Twins, all the way to the early intersections of electronics and pop found in Depeche Mode or even Pet Shop Boys, without neglecting, over the years, touches of minimal electronics, slowcore and much more besides.

Piano Magic's multifaceted musical history begins in 1997 with Popular Mechanics, an album that largely collects the singles released over the course of a little more than a year. The work is almost entirely instrumental, and Johnson's voice is not yet heard on it, because the vocal element, on the rare occasions it appears, is limited to the sung/spoken parts of Rachel Leigh, the first of the many female voices that over the years have helped enrich Piano Magic's compositions with grace and pathos. Its flow reveals simple musical structures, over which minimal, lo-fi keyboards sketch out ambient fascinations, sometimes dark in the manner of This Mortal Coil, sometimes lighter, alternating with more subdued and nuanced sounds (such as those of the pleasant "Revolving Moth Cage"), through which some of the possible developments of Johnson's musical sensibility can already be glimpsed, albeit from a distance. Elsewhere the album is a heavy listen, and also rather repetitive, as in the case of the overlong "Wintersport Crosscountry" and "To Be Swished Dream Of The Ups Driver", which fail to make it either an interesting work of electronic experimentation or a hazy, stretched-out soundtrack.

The following year Johnson further expands part of the album's content in the two very long suites (both around twenty minutes) included on A Trick Of The Sea, in which, however, amid electronic sounds, dissonances and various divertissements, more complex and fluid harmonic structures begin to emerge, among which Johnson's light guitar playing (which will soon become instantly recognisable) starts to appear, accompanying the excellent properly sung passage included in "A Trick Of The Sea", before the track, after passing through pleasant harmonies reminiscent of Stranglers, fades away into tones of ambient psychedelia. The other composition on the record, the spectral "Halloween Boat", also shows a development in Johnson's approach, not all that different from his early work but now more structured and purged of some of its initial excesses in favour of a sound that, while still stretched out, is now more cohesive and homogeneous, despite the considerable length of the tracks.

1999 brings Low Birth Weight, an album that also includes some tracks previously released, such as "The Fun Of The Century" and "I Am The Sub-Librarian", which appeared on an EP the year before. This work, decidedly more accessible than Popular Mechanics, marks a first turning point in Piano Magic's output, since here the song form becomes the frame within which Johnson contains his sonic experiments, which he nonetheless does not abandon, as in "The Fun Of The Century", where the tones become more seductive and the use of electronics becomes more measured, serving compositions in song form, or as in the enveloping, sinister melodies laid over the synthetic foundations of "Bad Patient". But this work also marks the discovery of Johnson's pop-wave fascinations, barely hinted at in "Crown Estate" and "The Fun Of The Century", more abundant in the ethereal "I Am The Sub-Librarian", in "Not Fair", suspended over iterative atmospheres dear to Slowdive, and in "Snowfall Soon", immersed in a vocal interplay and a noisy expansiveness that cannot help but recall My Bloody Valentine.

The mini-album Mort Aux Vaches, released at the same time as the album for the Dutch label Staalplaat, seems to move in the opposite direction, however, focused as it is on soft instrumental landscapes, among which the impetuous "post"-style crescendo of "Birds" and the ambient, soundtrack-like digressions of "Winter" are worth noting, the latter bringing to mind the compositions of Sylvain Chauveau and Arca.

As further proof of the prolific and consistently rich nature of his output, in 2000 Johnson also releases an important and varied album such as Artists' Rifles, in which he clearly defines what will become his future stylistic signature: soft melodies and measured rhythms reinterpret in a fluid, romantic key the vaguely gothic atmospheres of his early work, whose anguished approach here gives way to light, contemplative ballads. Thus, it's a pleasure to be lulled by the voice of Caroline Potter, the female collaborator of the moment, on the enveloping, circular "A Return To The Sea" and by the interplay between her vocals and Johnson's on "The Index". While the electronic or noise-based digressions remain confined to three short, untitled interludes each lasting under two minutes, the pastoral landscapes of "You And John Are Birds" and the folk drift of "Century Schoolbook" emerge, though there's no shortage of a guitar surge, halfway between Cure and My Bloody Valentine, on "Password".

2001 marks the beginning of Johnson's involvement with the Spanish independent scene, with the release, on Acuarela Discos, of the EP I Came To Your Party Dressed As Shadow, made up of three tracks suspended in subtly restless atmospheres. Meanwhile, Piano Magic finally brings its music — always imbued with settings perfectly suited to a soundtrack — to the cinema: for Bigas Luna's film, the six untitled compositions collected on Son De Mar see the light of day, not far removed from those of A Trick Of The Sea and dense with dreamy, crepuscular atmospheres, created by the by-now well-established interweaving of organic and synthetic instrumentation. Meanwhile, still in the same year, the British label Rocket Girl gathers, on the double album Seasonally Affective, the substantial body of material scattered across singles and collaborations from 1996 to 2000.

Yet another confirmation of how Piano Magic represents an open, ever-evolving musical project arrives in 2002 with Writers Without Homes, which features contributions from, among others, Simon Raymonde of Cocteau Twins and Ronald Lippok of Tarwater, as well as the first appearance, after roughly thirty years, of Vashti Bunyan, who sings on the gorgeous, evocative ballad "Crown Of The Lost". Perhaps precisely because of such disparate collaborations, this time the album seems to lack a cohesive conceptual structure, favouring a pace that's often drowsy rather than dreamlike, accentuated by the fact that many of the tracks consist of spoken-word pieces set within sonic contexts clearly designed to crystallise Johnson's poetic lyricism, centred on recurring reflections on love, fate and abandonment. His compelling compositional structures remain minimal as ever, but here they veer decisively towards a composite array of organic instrumentation, featuring melancholy strings, oboe, xylophones, harps ("Certainty") and above all piano, the true backbone of tracks like "Shot Through The Fog" and the unexpectedly light ballad "The Season Is Long". There's no shortage, however, of tracks with a more pronounced rhythmic impact, such as "Modern Jupiter", in which the influence of certain past and present Teutonic electronics can be felt (from Kraftwerk to Tarwater, precisely), "(Music Won't Save You From Anything But) Silence" and "Already Ghosts", ideal preludes to the definitive artistic positioning of Piano Magic within peculiar post-wave territories, which would solidify in later works. It's precisely from tracks like these that some of the traits emerge which would come to define, in subsequent records, the multifaceted compositions of Johnson and of what had by now become a cohesive Anglo-French band, still open to further notable collaborations.

A full demonstration of this arrives with the release, in December 2003 on the small Spanish label Green Ufos, of what can well be considered the manifesto record of Johnson's entire discography, namely The Troubled Sleep Of Piano Magic, whose ten tracks definitively establish his compositional approach in a song form that is compact and cohesive, yet once again unfolds through heterogeneous sonic guises. With contributions from, among others, the splendid voice of Angéle David-Guillou, Johnson moves with effortless class through genres and contaminations, guiding the listener among intermittent synthetic beats ("Saint Marie"), aggressive guitars and rhythms ("Speed The Road, Rush The Lights", "Luxembourg Gardens"), static claustrophobic atmospheres ("Help Me Warm This Frozen Heart"), 80s dark reminiscences ("The End Of A Dark Tired Year"), crystalline romantic ballads ("The Unwritten Law", "Comets") and much more, all seasoned with a clearly singer-songwriter-like intimate mood. A work so complex yet at the same time so easy to listen to also seems dictated by its author's deep knowledge of at least a couple of decades of British wave, here condensed into the brief span of a single album and, moreover, cast within a thrilling sonic frame, one not immune to the influences of both the intimate songwriting of a Mark Kozelek and the ethereal atmospheres of Low. The result is an album dense with emotion, one that captures the listener on a plane other than the strictly rational, since it's now clear that Piano Magic's best mode of expression lies in songs rooted in the classic wave tradition, revisited without easy nostalgic concessions, but also without contrived mental convolutions.

In the album's wake comes the substantial Saint Marie EP which, besides Alan Sparhawk's rendition of the title track, includes five further tracks suspended between a nostalgic orchestral folk-psychedelia ("Fantasia On Old English Airs" and the gorgeous, enveloping "Dark Ages", once again graced by Vashti Bunyan's voice), simple, intimate ballads ("Lalo") and rock-slowcore constructions ("Wrong Turn", also sung by Sparhawk, truly sounds like a Low track).

At the end of 2004 comes another EP, Open Cast Heart, decidedly disorienting compared to the direction Piano Magic had been following of late, with its four tracks of glacial, measured minimal electronics, filled with pathos and human warmth only thanks to the voices of Johnson and David-Guillou, who sing or alternately recite lyrics centred on emotional dynamics, abandonment and regret.

These, after all, are the themes that most often recur in Johnson's emotional songwriting, always bent on probing the deepest recesses of the human soul: the same holds true for the following album, Disaffected, yet another varied, multifaceted work, endowed with a fluid, immediate pop structure unlike anything in the past. The record doesn't stray too far from its predecessor, nor in general from the unsettling, spectral atmospheres that earned Piano Magic's music the fitting label "ghost-rock" (just listen to the gothic-tinged "You Can Hear The Room", but also the driving, gruesome pop-song "Night Of The Hunter"), but it still has, above all, the merit of weaving Johnson's mood and inspirations together with the distillate of so much fine British (and not only) pop-wave tradition. Thus the album moves effortlessly from the airy "Love & Music" to the slurred spoken word over a synth base of "Theory Of Ghosts", from the bare, limpid acoustic-guitar-and-voice ballads "I Must Leave London" and "You Can Never Get Lost (When You've Nowhere To Go)" to the iterative, very 80s synthetic percussion beat of "Disaffected" and "Deleted Scene".

Immediate confirmation of the splendid expressive power of Glen Johnson's writing in an electronic context comes from the four tracks on his second EP for Important Records, titled Incurable and released less than a year after Disaffected. On the title track, the sounds echo wave nuances, while the other three turn ethereal and expansive, seeming to closely reconnect with Piano Magic's earlier artistic past. Once again, Johnson reworks seemingly dated sonorities, rendering them thoroughly contemporary and always hitting the mark with warm, vibrant expression even on seemingly "glacial" tracks like "I Have Moved Into The Shadow". And then, "Incurable" almost feels like an anthem, a track that, in both music and lyrics, could sum up Piano Magic's entire poetics on its own.

Apart from the synth-pop tribute-digression released under the name Future Conditional, this kind of electronic form is however set aside on the following album, Part-Monster, where Johnson entrusts the continuation of his journey through the weaknesses of the human soul — understood as something intimately bound up with human nature, yet conveyed through emotions and feelings — to decisive guitars and atmospheres that are at once serene and sinister.

The expression of this mood comes across as very direct and at times even rough-edged, as is easy to grasp from the two re-recorded versions of previously released tracks featured on Part-Monster, both translated into a deeply electric register, among which the transformation of "Incurable"'s electronic guise into a track torn apart by waves of feedback stands out, starkly emphasising its lyrical content.

But it's exactly the second half of Part-Monster that's marked by a rediscovery of guitar distortion, as substantial as it is evanescent, culminating in the guitar whirlwinds of the instrumental "Great Escapes", in the claustrophobic atmospheres of "The King Cannot Be Found" and above all in "Saints Preserve Us", a track submerged under a cascade of distortion that almost reads as a tribute to early-90s sounds, and in particular to My Bloody Valentine, whom one's mind inevitably turns to, also considering that the album was produced by none other than Guy Fixsen, responsible, among other things, for the immense "Loveless".

The remaining half of the record is instead occupied by more measured tracks, perfectly consistent with the character of Johnson's writing as expressed in now long-standing works in his discography, such as "Low Birth Weight" and "Artists' Rifles". The points of contact with those works are numerous, in enchanted ballads of desolate urban folk (sic), such as "England's Always Better (As You're Pulling Away)" and "Cities & Factories", in which nostalgia drapes bucolic landscapes turned sepia, and in "Soldier Song", a lulling, hallucinated track that moves with the sinister grace of a music box, its repetitive gears softened by the ever more convincing performance of Angéle David-Guillou.

On a not dissimilar register sit the two (relatively) lighter tracks, which balance out Piano Magic's usual gloom: "Halfway Through" has an almost sunny gait, embellished by elegant horns, while the closing title track arrives to ease the preceding electric turmoil, sketching a placid acoustic finale with sadly self-deprecating lyrics ("I'm tired of being tired").

The plurality of references present in Part-Monster confirms the definition of "a man who lives in the past" that Glen Johnson himself has claimed; and yet, once one gets past the superficial impression of "already heard", the many facets present within it make it a work that is, as ever, sincere and by no means lacking in pathos, even though the band's renewed expressive immediacy partly dissipates the aura of mystery and the constant taste for surprise typical of previous works.

Nonetheless, this record too fits coherently into Piano Magic's musical history, one always rich in sometimes surprising detours; however, the more recent productions in particular show how Johnson's restless soul seems to have finally found a landing point, at least on a musical level. Its greatest merit is without doubt having managed to forge its own personal sonic stamp, even though it unfolds across compositions of rather different structures and shapes, all traceable in some measure to a great deal of music produced over the last twenty years; but the compositional aim of the Piano Magic project is not some cold, contrived innovation pursued for its own sake, since its mastery lies above all in its ability to move the listener, transporting them into a dimension that the very musical variety of its compositions is able to create. It can therefore be said that Johnson, despite having travelled over the years through tortuous and sometimes unpredictable musical paths, has nonetheless always managed to steer clear of anachronistic nostalgia, thanks above all to his keen sensitivity and refined attention to detail, capable of giving life to a songwriting that is dense, moving and always recognisable in character, while at the same time open to diverse and often unpredictable musical contaminations.

The immediate follow-up to Part-Monster is a scant seventeen-minute EP, Dark Horses, which marks Piano Magic's first release for the new label Make Mine Music, deliberately chosen by Johnson for the maximum autonomy it grants its artists, both creatively and in terms of promotion and distribution.

The EP's four tracks tend to smooth out the predominantly electric bulk of Part-Monster, reprising its insistent rhythms and generally oppressive atmospheres, yet diluted according to the usual liquid, spectral register that has by now become Piano Magic's unmistakable trademark, just like the lyrics, once again centred on themes of separation and absence.

If the murky symbolism of the title track and the martial stride of the claustrophobic "A Book I Should Not Read" seem to pose themselves as an ideal, if more nuanced, continuation of the previous album, it's the two middle tracks that offer the most interesting angles, outlining variations that aren't new to Johnson's discography, yet certainly better suited to his aching pen. Thus, in the enveloping "Vacancies" the crystalline voice of Angéle David-Guillou paints a song that's fast and perfectly balanced in its subtly psych guise and in the bitter emptiness of its lyrics ("Well, phone me if you feel the need. My days are vacancies; my heart, it tends to bleed"), while with "Stations" Johnson delivers a track on par with his finest, reconciling soft sonorities with an inexorable rhythmic stride, which together easily get under the skin with the unchanging autumn of his soul ("We're stations, disconnected at the heart. Our rails are rusted veins; our switches, torn apart"). Johnson may well be an artist by now well-versed in this kind of effect, but if the result is a track of such depth, it means the trick still works extremely well for him, and above all with the utmost naturalness.

After a year spent actively working on his parallel artistic alter egos – with a new record from Textile Ranch and the first album released under his own name, "Details Not Recorded" – in 2009, after just a few months of recording, Ovations sees the light of day, Piano Magic's tenth record.

True to the constant mutations that have marked his entire career, Glen Johnson brings to the surface the dark undercurrents that have always lain beneath his songwriting, opening, as it were, the drawer of his musical memories where the darkest fascinations were stored, embodied by the Cure, Joy Division, the Chameleons and so many 4AD productions between the 80s and early 90s.

And it's precisely two artists from that label's golden era who actively take part in "Ovations": Brendan Perry and Peter Ulrich of Dead Can Dance. Their contribution is anything but incidental, due not only to the mutual regard that binds them to Piano Magic, but above all to the meticulous rhythmic research that marks this work, together with a dark streak never so explicit before.

The percussive constant of Ovations thus translates into daring pairings of icy electronic drums and warm traditional instrumentation, such as the dulcimer, castanets and the Turkish darabuka. These different rhythmic expressions are once again anchored to spectral atmospheres, often reduced to synth beds that support all the other elements, from whose intersection results a frenetic alternation of enveloping mists and ancestral dances, harsh drum-machine lashes and residual traces of the previous album's guitar emphasis.

Beyond the shifting sonic guises, Glen Johnson's imprint remains clearly distinguishable on "Ovations", which, also thanks to Gareth Parton's careful production, once again yields a top-notch work, adorned with a few genuine gems, carved out by the impetuous ritualism of "March Of The Atheists", the post-industrial synthetic obsessions of "On Edge" and the decadent ecstasy of "You Never Loved This City", perfectly rounded off by a Brendan Perry in a state of grace.

Despite fifteen years of activity and ten albums behind him, for Glen Johnson it's always time for new challenges and sonic transformations, even while staying true to an always recognisable sensibility and imprint.

Having shed the booming guitars of the previous two albums, on Life Has Not Finished With Me Yet his Piano Magic go back to grappling with a leaner sonic form, closer to the analogue sound of their origins but also reaching toward an acoustic dimension.

More upbeat in its self-ironic title and in its conclusion ("Do not suppose there is no hope / Do not forget you're not alone"), the record is the fruit of these recent inclinations, in light of which Johnson revisits his sharp reflections on abandonment, ghosts and human frailty, once again embracing the murkiest, most spectral aspects of his music.

Oblique lines of analogue synths, dark percussive suspensions and lukewarm acoustic melodies are supported by a string and brass section which, both in the more flowing ballads and in the martial electronic passages, heightens the vastness of the sonic cathedrals in which songs seem to resound that aim more for atmosphere than immediate impact.

Having just passed twenty years of activity and twelve albums, the band announces Closure, the final album that seals their subsequent breakup. Johnson, on the matter, speaks of the concept of "physiological closure", also referencing his recent personal experiences, such as the death of his father and the end of a long romantic relationship. And there's also something to chew on for the incurably nostalgic: the more attentive will have noticed that "Artists' Rifles" features a track titled "No Closure", also centred on the concept of closure and ending, as if, already some fifteen years ago, the band knew their fate was already sealed.

Closure arrives a full four years after the previous album and gathers up more or less all the shades of the music written across these two decades of career, reassembling for this special occasion the band's original nucleus, made up, besides Glen Johnson of course, of Jerome Tcherneyan (drums and percussion), Alasdair Steer (bass) and Frank Alba (guitar). The elegant dark-rock with wave overtones, later rebranded "ghost-rock", is an integral part of this album right from the first hints. Indeed the opening "Closure" is the perfect track for anyone who loves the band's style: measured electric clatter, cadenced bass, an instrumental coda running over ten minutes, vocals close to spoken word, and plenty, plenty of atmosphere. The album unfolds through variations on these musical themes, with illustrious guests adorning tracks of great class, such as the celebrated cellist Audrey Riley on "Living For Other People" or singer Peter Milton Walsh of Australia's the Apartments, featured on the poignant "Attention To Life". The delicate string brushstrokes already mentioned on "Living For Other People" or also on "You Never Stop Loving (The One That You Loved)" make "Closure" a career finale that turns rock into something personal, almost "chamber"-like, deeply cathartic, an outlet for the most hidden frustrations and emotions.

Standing apart, a little removed from the band's most recent conventions, is "Exile", close to the electronic temptations of the magnificent "Saint Maire", able to convey, with the band's usual coolness and class, the turmoil and frustration of a complicated, suffering, limping relationship. Johnson's vocals here too are perfectly pitched for the moods evoked, never overdone, woven between the pulses of a drum machine and the faint guitar chords.

For anyone who has spent time in the underground music territories we're discussing here, it will be a real blow to the heart to have to say goodbye to Piano Magic. The only way we have to celebrate this extraordinary band's twenty-year career is to enjoy this, their final album, and go back to rediscover everything they recorded in the past, never forgetting, as the opening track of "Writers Without Homes" put it, that Music won't save you from anything but silence.

Contributions by Alessandro Biancalana ("Closure")

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