Listen: Magic People

By Jeremy Krinsley » OKLO Audio, a shoebox label whose proprietor plays keyboards in its latest release, You Are the Magic People, puts Magic People into a "Boston noise rock" lineage in a tongue-in-cheek mythologizing Myspace bio. If there's any self-abasing joking here, it's still with the truth in mind: Magic People's de facto front man John Manson played drums for legendary rusted guitar-machine outfit Neptune. The latest batch of Magic People tunes (they've been releasing material as a band since 2005) cling closer to the rock margins, which is why some of the vocal turns and keyboard hooks in "The Pigeon and the Eggs" have been stuck in my head for a month and why "Your Dude" owes as much to Jonathan Richman's post-adolescent word play as it does say, Roger Miller's guitar snarls.