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magnet songs on TV Nov. 15, 2002
Magnet is the soundtrack to your lives, if you watch a combination of Roswell High, John Doe, Six Feet Under or the new Kevin Spacey movie ‘United States of Leland’.
Those folks at Universal Music have been busy working the sounds of Magnet on to the big screen. For Magnet train-spotters, so far you’ll find ‘Where Happiness Lives’ on both Roswell High and John Doe (both well known US TV shows) & ‘The Recluse’ from uber rare debut album ‘Quiet & Still’ also on John Doe in the new series. …And it’s that track once more that surfaces in an abrupt living room scene in the new Kevin Spacey move ‘The United States of Leland’. Besides all of this ‘Little Miss More or Less’, a track exclusive to recent ‘Chasing Dreams’ EP has just been selected to feature in a forthcoming episode of hip US TV show ‘Six Feet Under’.
Categories: TV
Chasing Dreams review Nov. 11, 2002
Great Chasing Dreams ’ EP in Whisperin’& Hollerin’:
MAGNET – aka EVEN JOHANSEN – was doused in accolades for his recent debut EP, winning a coveted Record of the Week award from the notorious Mark & Lard in the process.
That EP is now apparently rarer than hen’s teeth, but if you missed it then cheer up, because “Chasing Dreams” is an excellent second floor to stop and grab the elevator as it ascends.
Apart from a bit of mixing expertise from the influential Steve Osborne in London and a skewhiff, but enjoyable remix (by PSYCHONAUTS) of the track “I’ll Come Along”, “Chasing Dreams” was entirely pieced together in Even’s Bergen, Norway studio and it retains a beguiling charm all its’ own.
The title song leads off and it’s a beaut: all lazy, rolling drums, starkly picked strings, lingering, janglesome guitars and Johansen’s coolly lugubrious vocal, making like the very essence of windswept. He’ll probably garner the (by now) obligatory Buckley/ Martin comparisons, but second track “Little Miss More Or Less” finds him sounding wonderfully torpid, like he’s rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he sings.
Both these tracks are elegant, emotive affairs, but this writer’s personal favourite is surely “Home Song”, where Even appears to lassoo Ennio Morricone, Calexico and The Handsome Family and drives ‘em all into Death Valley to do battle. Beautiful and strange, if there’s a more successful hybrid (with bells!) this year, I’d love to hear it.
“Chasing Dreams” is one of those great, fleeting moments that seems to arrive as if from nowhere. Let’s hope there’s a lot more where this comes from, because as he sings on the title track: “Looks like everything’s falling into place.”
I’m nodding my head vigorously in agreement. (9/10)