Luke Temple’s spell takes hold with Here We Go Magic’s self-titled release

By Niema Jordan
Published: February 24th, 2009 | 7:00am

On a chilly winter night Luke Temple paces back and forth smoking a cigarette inches away from Brooklyn’s Southpaw performance space and bar. He blends in with the crowd that is forming outside the venue, only he’s alone and seems to be in a zone of his own. Maybe it’s the same otherworldly lane that birthed his sonic work of art, Here We Go Magic.

“Luke finished the record and it was a kind of curiosity that he passed around to his friends,” says guitarist Michael Bloch of the album in its first incarnation. He is seated next to Temple, who has taken refuge from the cold in the building’s lower lounge. “I’m not sure how the album got out,” states Bloch.

“Our publicist,” laughs Temple, Bloch chuckles and nods in agreement. Straightening up in his seat, Temple becomes a bit more serious. “This is the only record that I’ve recorded that I can still listen to. I love listening to it.”

Here We Go Magic is unlike Temple’s first two albums Hold a Match to a Gasoline World and Snowbeast. “It has less to do with clarity of specific melodic ideas [and] more to do with the whole textural thing happening all at once,” Temple says of the new release. While his early recordings had structured songs with clear verses and choruses, beginnings and endings, this album is much more abstract, he explains. The album’s sound also prompted Temple to create a band by the same name. “This record seemed suited to create a more ensemble-type arrangement than anything I had done before.”

Temple starts off Here We Go Magic with the first single “Only Pieces” which loops Temple’s voice singing “What’s the use of dying, dying , if I don’t know when / what’s the use of trying dying, if I don’t know when / there are only pieces, pieces, pieces of me / what’s the use of dying, dying, if I cannot see.” The alternate structure of the song prepares listeners for the remaining tracks.

There’s the upbeat “Tunnelvision,” where Temple’s vocals aren’t as loud as the accompaniment, but are just as powerful. And then there is “Ghost List.” A constant stream of ambient sounds, sans vocals, that pulls the listener into a trance-like state, even though it becomes progressively louder and a bit eerie. Although each song is different, they transition well and it’s easy to get lost in the music. “It’s a record that needs focus. It needs to be listened to for its own sake,” says Temple.

But this experiment in sound is not new for Temple. His limited-edition, 7-inch release, Brain, was also improvisational and experimental. “It’s a link that people don’t talk about much,” explains Bloch, who is also a vocalist. “That was the time period where he started to shift how he thought about constructing a song,” he says. “It was kind of the birth of this new approach to song,”

Temple agrees. And while he is known as a singer-songwriter, he explains that he’s never been comfortable with the title because it feels limiting. “I think of myself as more just a musician,” he says. “I wanted to make that clearer with this album.”

Though the LP could take some getting used to for fans of the pop-folk Luke Temple, he is invested in the album. “I recorded based on pure emotion,” he explains. “I feel like that translates into a better feel.” And as if he is allowing us another look into his world, Temple exposes why he is so comfortable with the stream-of-consciousness feel of Here We Go Magic. “Your voice comes through whether you are conscious of it or not,” he says. “I think it comes through more clearly if you’re not thinking about it at all.”

Later in the night, concertgoers loudly whisper “That’s him” while Here We Go Magic sets up. As the musicians begin to play, Luke has a sudden burst of energy. The laid-back musician is now jumping up and down on the stage, and everyone watching is rocking along with him. There are five people on stage, playing together what Temple created on his own, yet it sounds like each band member was in the room with him. Somehow they’ve accessed his world, and now the audience is getting a piece of it too.

Magic, indeed.
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Here We Go Magic MySpace