Miami indie pop group Magic City Hippies have shared their brand new LP ‘Water Your Garden’, along with its focus track, ‘Atlantis’. Granted, the beats are smartly infectious, and the band’s way around synths and sequencers shows a refreshingly smart approach to electronic pop. The 11 tracks on the latest album sound like a lost jukebox full of cool b‑sides that should have been a-sides by British Invasion bands from the ’60s, glam rockers from the ’70s, new wave singles from the ’80s, country-rock jams from the ’90s, and TV theme music from this century.
Shades on and shirts unbuttoned, Magic City Hippies generate the kind of heat that could’ve powered a high seas yacht party in the seventies or shake a Coachella stage next summer. If the trio—Robby Hunter, Pat Howard, and John Coughlin—stepped off the screen from some long-lost Quentin Tarantino flick in slow-motion (instruments in hand), nobody would question it. Embracing everything from AM radio rock and poolside pop to nimble raps and salsa, they lock into an era-less vibe with no shortage of psychedelic funk or hooks. The three-piece deliver the kind of bangers you can play on the way to the party, during the party, and to smooth over the comedown as the sun comes up.
As the guys so eloquently describe it, they “give people a choice to enjoy this on the surface level, feel funky in their bodies, and dance…or go deeper into the music.”
About the final single, Robby Hunter says, “Painted with the backdrop of crashing waves and denim on Laguna Beach – we wonder if this new love we’ve found is already lost in the ocean, or was it much deeper than that. Fresh love always seems to be the most raw, rewarding, fleeting kind of love. In its truest form it’s a tiny spark, or a massive comet shooting by in one fleeting instance of your lifetime. It’s something you desperately want to hold on to forever, but can’t quite seem to keep out of the clutches of time. This playful, seemingly innocent track bends and twists into a classic MCH transition, morphing into an entirely different but related song. Transporting the listener into our trap-infused DM’s, seemingly where this fresh love began in the first place…”
Stream album on your preferred service – https://createmusic.fm/wateryourgarden
Does life write music? Or does music write life? “It’s something we ask ourselves every time we finish an album. There is some type of serendipity in finishing music that somehow plays out in real life. Almost like predicting the future. The same thing happened with ‘Modern Animal,’ and it seems to be playing out again with this new piece of work. I think that means we’re doing something right, if our music somehow knows something more about us than we do.”
“Water Your Garden is the first album we created while all three of us were in separate places around the US. Completely remote and sending songs back and forth throughout quarantine- while everyone was locked down in their respective homes. Pat finally moved out to LA- locked down in his studio. Robby moved out into the mountains of Montana, and John held down the homebase in Miami.”
“Since coming off our most successful tour to date, the 2020 Modern Animal tour, everyone was riding high. We had huge shows booked in our future and felt like our dreams were finally within reach- then covid hit. And everyone experienced their own version of some type of mental health issue (just like everyone else in the world). Whether it was a massive stress-test on relationships in lockdown, or family members passing away, or politics driving best friends away. Everyone seemed like they were going through something.”
“I think haphazardly we all realized how important self-care was, and how necessary it was to help us get through this thing. Without knowing, we began to write about our life experiences- and the songs started flowing. With the life transitions everyone in the band was going through, we were all starting to water our own gardens, and take care of ourselves, and our families for the first time. So the album just feels so fitting, even if we didn’t know where we’d all be in our lives last summer when we named it. I think that lended itself to a more introspective, emotionally mature collection of music. At least lyrically – musically it’s classic MCH, all over the place sounds. From some heavy synth-based, Jai Paul inspired bops – to Drake inspired trap – to soft, vintage tinted instrumental tracks like ‘Hangunder’ and throwback 80’s hits like ‘High Above The Sun.’ Even if the majority of the songs aren’t classically ‘happy’ we are still urging the listener to dance to every track, and that is a must in magic city hippie music.”
“We were fortunate enough to get a bunch of our friends on tracks – from maye’s perfect voice on ‘Water Your Garden,’ to Tim Atlas on ‘Therapy,’ and Nafets on ‘High Beams’ … it all seemed to come together perfectly.”
Magic City Hippies are on tour now, continuing through Spring 2022. Tickets are on sale now.
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