Send "Here We Go Magic " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 Listeners crave tidy narratives. Thus, when "Collector", the second track from Here We Go Magic's second LP and first as a full band, Pigeons, began to make the blog rounds, there was quite a bit of chatter about the album possibly being the band's-- and its bandleader, Luke Temple's-- breakout moment. Makes sense: It's hard to listen to "Collector"-- one of the finest pieces of post-Sufjan Stevens chamber pop-- and not get excited about something. Can anyone be blamed for hoping that the rest of the record would endlessly vibe on that theme?Whatever the case, Pigeons is not the sparkling, fully realized breakout effort many of us hoped from this band. Nothing is as precisely organized and self-contained as "Collector", as the album's other similarly rhythmic, pulsing moments arise more from Here We Go Magic's reliance on looped melodic fragments than any discernible krautrock influence. As such, Pigeons feels less divorced from the bedroom freak-folk of the project's self-titled debut (recorded by Temple all by his lonesome, with the assistance of a looping pedal or two) than it seems the logical extension of that aesthetic. Somewhat surprisingly, especially given the debut's minor faults, the woodshedded feel of Pigeons is a good look for the band. Here We Go Magic are doing something more interesting-- something weirder; they're trying out takes on jittery new wave, tone-smeared dream-pop, and high-pitched Kiwi pop with success. The normally frustrating aspect of transitional albums is that bands that make them tend to get lost in their own experimentation; instead, Here We Go Magic attack their shape-shifting sounds with enthusiasm and purpose, applying details like the honking keyboard line in "Old World United" and "Hibernation"'s bouncy bass to flesh out songs rather than as affectations....full text |
| Bbc |
| Redraw those best music of 2010 lists because Pigeons, the second album from Here We Go Magic, will be alighting somewhere near the top of them. Their self-titled debut was one of 2009’s nicer surprises, more distinctive than bandleader Luke Temple’s previous work under his own name, and Pigeons builds emphatically on that success. It’s at once a work of larger ambition and greater focus than its predecessor, beginning brilliantly and continuing in the same manner for its entire length. While Temple played every instrument on all but one of the tracks on Here We Go Magic, the fact that Pigeons is the work of a five-piece band is clearly discernible. Gone is the 4-track, field recording atmosphere of the first album, its mussed figures replaced with sharper, more penetrating lines. Rather than sterilising the sound, however, this clarity means that when these chamber pop pieces extend themselves into raga-like jams, as they often do, the shift from brevity and precision into longer, freer forms is all the more powerful, like a pinpoint of light widening into an enveloping ball of blinding heat. There’s a spirit of ecstatic celebration moving through Pigeons, a building wave at the centre of each of each song that often seems more than it can bear. Witness the frantic organ pop of Old World United, constantly fighting a losing battle with chaotic elements that threaten its derailment, the paradoxically languid psychedelic thrash that ends Surprise, and the orgiastic climax of Collector’s thrillingly avid Krautrock ride. But while much of Pigeons transfigures indie-pop into Dionysian ritual, the unavoidable serotonin debt is paid by F.F.A.P., Land of Feeling and Bottom Feeder, which all circle around intimations of psychological turbulence and dissatisfaction. Meanwhile, the breezy strum of Casual, one of the album’s best songs, belies the pain it houses. “It’s casual, not heartbreaking,” Temple sings in his fragile alto croon, his delivery betraying the line’s pungent irony....full text |
| Independent |
| Now expanded from Luke Temple's one-man operation into a bona fide five-piece band following the success of last year's debut album, Here We Go Magic hint at their sizeable potential with Pigeons, though the thinness of some of the ideas suggests they might have rushed to record too soon. The stylistic touchstones here are minimalism, psychedelia, gamelan and Krautrock, with Temple's lyrics offering enigmatic phrases delivered in his high, pure tones. Opener "Hibernation" is a Terry Riley-esque organ shuffle that scuds along with casual urgency, while "Collector" runs cyclical guitar figures over a Neu!-beat. But elsewhere, "Moon" is industriously directionless, and "Surprise" an unhappy alliance between Pink Floyd keyboard washes and pedestrian indie-rock....full text |
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