Sound structure or randomness will fill the mind with a certain primal need for an evolution that inherently limits the imagination. Half Man Half Machine, the 2015 release from Magic Trick, builds and then explores a sonic landscape that is constantly in bloom. Whether it be in the slipstream and eddying of triumphant washes of melody, in the serpentine elegance of percussive brambles, or in the perseverance of the laconic lilt, woven upon revelations of transcendence and frailty from the mouth of Tim Cohen, one is invited into a landscape that shifts and grows based on its own ulterior nature... and one must only listen to find it for themselves. Listen to the kalimba, metronome, cymbal washes, shaker rattles, mercurial guitars, raga feel, glockenspiel, low-frequency rumble, subtle synthesizer, tabla loops; listen to the glowing of pride, the soft self-consciousness, the deflecting surrealism of your guide's tongue; let yourself feel swept in its sonic orgy of change and realization; there is form for you to hold, there is path for you to plant, you must allow these sounds, these stories, to envelop your senses, you must let them wash through you, guide you to the structure that looms elusive under the roar-it is trying to tell you something and you have no choice but to feel and listen to the tapestry enveloping you, inviting you into its myriad and continually growing current and unknown direction. One must listen closely to this record, there is a chemistry of sound and creativity, perched at its cups every edge, that brings an organic and expansive stroke of structure, cohesiveness, imagination and honest human transformation to a time most pummeled by the strictness of the machine.
