Young Magic

Young Magic blend dream pop, trip-hop, electro, and global sounds while echoing My Bloody Valentine and Animal Collective with an added tribal edge. The three musicians first connected in New York around 2007 through shared tastes and a mutual urge to roam. Australian Isaac Emmanuel spent 2010 crossing Europe, then New York and Mexico, capturing material on whatever instruments he encountered. Fellow Australian Michael Italia meanwhile roamed Europe and South America with portable gear, as Indonesian-born Melati Malay worked on her own pieces in New York.

Reunited locally in early 2011, they leased a Brooklyn room above a speakeasy and started joint sessions that produced the singles “Sparkly,” “You with Air,” and “Night in the Ocean.” By fall they appeared at Iceland’s Airwaves Festival and New York’s CMJ, and also toured alongside lo-fi dream popster Youth Lagoon. Their debut album Melt arrived on Carpark in February 2011, collecting those singles together with travel recordings made by Emmanuel and Italia plus Brooklyn tracks cut with Malay.

Touring in support of Melt filled most of 2012 and 2013; when work began on the follow-up, the lineup had narrowed to the duo of Malay and Emmanuel. They tracked material across Morocco, France, Czech Republic, Australia, Iceland, and Brooklyn, yet 2014’s Breathing Statues emerged as a tighter, more streamlined collection. After her father’s death, Malay traveled to Indonesia to reconnect with family. Back in New York she resumed Young Magic work with Emmanuel, cellist Kelsey Lu McJunkins, percussionist Daniel Alejandro Siles Mendoza, and producer Erin Rioux. Carpark issued Still Life in 2016.