Elliot Moss has today released the music video for the track titled ‘Magic’. With an intimate feel that perfectly encapsulates the mind and meaning of Elliot’s original voice, the song verves and swerves from introvert to sonically dirty anthem for those that really need that reassurance that we’re not the only one to have gone through this or that.
Topped with an EVH inspired guitar solo, the subtle genre hops are as welcome as they are appropriate.
“‘Magic’ expresses how we often resort to stupid, reckless actions as a means of distracting ourselves from bigger and scarier things. It’s about the liberation found in creating our own whirlwinds instead of being subject to those we can’t influence. I was looking for a kind of comfort, a sense of ownership amidst the tumult of life’s uncontrollable factors.
‘Magic’ is childish. The whole thing feels as much like a tantrum as it does a big, stubborn victory lap. I made it when my dad got sick, fearing (despite the obvious) that the treatment itself could affect his hearing. I grew up in his recording studio, falling asleep on the couch drums galloping down the hall. Morning conversations over coffee are unusual if they don’t include at least one plug-in recommendation. We’ve done tours together, him doing sound. I’d look out to front-of-house and smirk because a ‘big part’ is coming, where he gets to pin the ever-important sub-bass fader and shake the hell out of us.
So naturally, the ‘Magic’ kept getting louder and louder until I couldn’t fit anything else. I sought to drown out the ringing of anxiety that came back whenever things got quiet with walls of guitars and every drum I own.
I went a bit crazy in this song, and in my life, more than I ever thought I would. Only thing is, he’s just fine now and I’m left with a Van Halen-inspired guitar solo I won’t ever be able to play.”
Accompanying the single release is the Moss-directed music video featuring a Magic 8-Ball, representing our inability to control our fate. Instead, Moss encourages listeners to “accept fate instead of trying to engineer it.” He continues, “Trying to interfere with the immutability of the ball just makes me feel more powerless, and the fluid, when cracked open and spilled out, does unpredictable things.”
About Elliot Moss
An inveterate musician raised in the recording studio; Elliot Moss has devoted much of his life to dreaming up sonic worlds with a strangely transportive power. After finding breakout success with his viral hit single “Slip” at age 18, the New York City-bred singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist brought his unfettered imagination and refined musicality to his 2015 debut Highspeeds and its follow-up A Change In Diet (a 2020 LP praised by Pitchfork as “sharp and deftly evocative”).
When it came time for his third album, Moss matched his limitless ingenuity with a newly heightened commitment to exacting emotional truth—a dynamic that soon led to his most fully realized offering yet, a nuanced meditation on how personal limitations both burden and define us. Rooted in his belief that “peace comes from feeling things sharply,” the result is a luminous body of work that invites both intense introspection and transformative catharsis.
With the help and insight from fellow producer Damian Taylor (Björk, Arcade Fire, Japandroids), Moss shaped the album’s boldly original form of alt-pop by working with a vast palette of instrumentation and electronic elements, embracing a decidedly more guitar-centric sound than his past work. “Guitar was my first instrument and I was obsessed with it as a kid, so it felt right to write songs with actual riffs for once,” says Moss, who got his start playing bass in studio sessions helmed by his father, a veteran studio engineer who now joins Moss on the road as his live sound mixer.”
Featured image by Jeff Vespa.
LINKS:
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