Biography
"Accidental electronica" duo General Magic ranks among the most unconventional and stylistically unbound acts on the Austrian Mego label. Ramon Bauer and Andi Pieper, who head the imprint, launched the project at roughly the same moment they founded Mego itself; their collaboration with Peter "Pita" Bauer on the track "Fridge Trax" became the label’s debut release. General Magic subsequently issued two twelve-inch singles on Mego and the mini-LP Live and Final Fridge on Source before unveiling the full-length CD Frantz in 1997. Recorded across sessions in Austria and Germany—where Bauer operates the label’s Berlin studio—the album draws on source material sampled from the rail line that joins the two countries. In the manner of Panasonic and Autechre, General Magic confines its tonal resources to a handful of sound types—drum machine, EQ, distortion, reverb—yet assembles pieces of striking intricacy and unexpected range, with audible traces, when discernible, of dub, funk, techno, ambient/electro-acoustic, and hip-hop. Bauer and Pieper’s refined production remains central to the duo’s impact: even the rawest, most heavily artifacted sounds receive a glossy finish that renders the music more compelling than emotive, although several tracks do achieve genuine emotional resonance.
Albums
