EXMAGICIAN unveil new video for ‘Place Your Bets’
EXMAGICIAN is the collaboration between longtime friends Danny Todd and James Smith. The Belfast duo, who released their debut EP ‘Kiss That Wealth Goodbye’ on Friday 20th November via Bella Union, have now released a live performance video of one of the EP’s many highlights ‘Place Your Bets’, a track which has been gaining lots of support at BBC Radio 1 & 6Music.
Recorded at an old farmhouse on a grim, grey day just outside Belfast, Todd describes ‘Place Your Bets’ as “a song from a rosy-faced, unraveling romantic who’s always hiding the beaten docket in his pocket”
Check it out below…
‘Kiss That Wealth Goodbye’ is available now on iTunes.
Danny and James last broke cover as the songwriters behind Cashier No.9, whose lush, David Holmes-produced album To The Death Of Fun (Bella Union) brought them critical acclaim (Best Album at the NI Music Awards, shortlisted for Best Album of 2011 by the Irish Times), strong radio support from BBC 6 Music, Radio 1 and Radio 2 and a string of sold-out club dates and major festival appearances across the UK and Ireland.
Since then the pair have moved on and returned with something new. Self-written and produced with the help of Rocky O’Reilly (And So I Watch You From Afar, General Fiasco, Mojo Fury), their first EP as exmagician leaves behind the Laurel Canyon sheen of Cashier No.9 in favour of something louder, fuzzier and grittier, born of a playful attitude, greater confidence and a load of new pedals and synths. “It’s the dirt under the fingernails,” says Danny with a smile.
The musical reinvention is apparent from the very first seconds of opening track Kiss That Wealth Goodbye, which steams in with a filthy riff, the product of a guitar and a synth melding together so you can’t tell which is which – a feature of the album. “It’s like early Beefheart meets Add N To X,” says Danny – a measure of just how broad the duo’s influences are. “David [Holmes] lent me a Korg MS-20 and then I bought one myself. That synth shaped a lot of the record.”
Tracklisting…
1. Kiss That Wealth Goodbye
2. Place Your Bets
3. Smile To The Gallery
4. Tear On Let Off Some Steam