Online-Magazin/Gothtronic
November Növelet "Magic"
Hello, welcome to sinister and gloomy world of Mr and Mrs Arafna, this time in their pop incarnation November Növelet. I suppose November Növelet is Mrs Arafna creative output.
After eight long years there is a new album called Magic.
When you think about pop you may be thinking about easy sing along music but in the case of November Növelet you couldn’t be more wrong as magic treats you on highly unpleasant tunes crawling up your spine and giving you goose bumps all over your body as a cold moist hand touches your back. Slowly this record gets you at the throat suffocating you till you are nearly death, you only can get just enough air not to faint.
This is an absolute claustrophobic album with cold minimalist electro songs with a cool swing. The music slowly evolves with a dirty oppressive atmosphere while Mrs Arafna monotonous but ethereally sings her lyrics.
Magic is more restrained then predecessor From Heaven on earth but the atmosphere is more sinister, or as the Germans beautifully express as unheimlich. The sound goes more towards eighties angst pop, which always was a big inspiration to this couple already. Magic is quite catchy and therefore easy to listen to and will definitely attract a broad audience from eighties new wave orientated people to those who were already common to Mr and Mrs Arafna more harsh sound.
Magic is a very complete album and is in total balance, with a variation of songs, there even are some tracks for the dance floor like “Glass” which starts off a- tonally but soon force you to move your body, and title track and hit song “Magic”, songs we will hear more often from now at better dance parties.
November Növelet’s analogue created sound sounds cold and clinical with a morbid feel but this does not pay in melody as one could hear in “My Fairy Place” which is melodic and swinging but also very distant and cold, the music has a threatening feel while Mrs Arafna sings mystically.
Other breath taking tracks are “Street of Lost Hearts” with a great eighties feeling, cold and restrained but very melodic and pleasantly swinging. In “I Want You” I even hear traces of Portidhead. There is depressive gloominess in “I See Real”, slow and atmospherically dark.
Is there a Theremin in “Eternity”?
With magic’s for last song “Free” we are hitting the dance floor again, an up tempo song with great rhythm. The album ends with “So Far No Further” a track dragging through the depths of Arafna’s analogue sound world.
Magic is a superb pop album I can recommend to every one who like eighties analogue synthesiser sounds and cold depressed new wave. Absolutely one of the finest albums of intense beauty of 2007! This was worth waiting for.
Magic also comes in a vinyl edition of 721 so the junkies should be quick!
Remco
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