What happens when you put two extremely talented individuals together? Magic! Richard Oakes, guitarist from Suede and Sean McGhee, the well known producer ( Imogen Heap, Alanis Morrisette,Robyn ) are Artmagic. And that’s exactly what they have done with their debut album ‘Become The One You Love’, making magic.
‘Become the One You Love’ consists of 11 mid tempo tracks, each strongly individual and empowering. There’s a clear division between the songs some are rather relaxing and chilled such as album opener ‘The Choice’ which is accompanied by piano and tracks like ‘Half Of You’ while others like ‘Down the River’ and ‘You’ are equipped by electric guitars sounding very edgy and much more up tempo. Their amazing single ‘Forever in Negative’, featured on the album, is a regular on BBC 6 Music receiving full support. The album has been described as ‘Excellent, classy grown up music…truly beautiful’ which only adds to Art Magic being a top of the bill act!
The album itself has been something the guys had never done before. Talking about that process Sean explains ”Richard and I have enjoyed a great freedom because there was no giant organization to please, only ourselves, so we could do whatever we wanted. But we’ve tried to make melodic, accessible music that appeals on a mainstream level, so the album has several big open doors people can walk through. ‘Beauty’ is another key word for Artmagic. Even when the music is hard and troubled, we didn’t want to be too thorny and spiky.”
‘Become the One You Love’ is the result of an amazing collaboration between Richard and Sean. The dreamy atmospheric guitar-pop they provide on this album is just simply too good to resist. The track ‘A Homecoming’ represents this description beautifully. If you can imagine sincere lyrics, rich layers of music, and a dreamy atmosphere than you won’t disagree on ‘Become The One You Love’ as a must-buy album.
‘Become the One You Love’ by Art Magic is available on July 2nd. Watch the video for current single ‘Forever in Negative’ below.
