Video: Magistrates “Make This Work” on The Take Away Show
- story THE FADER
More sweet, sweet love serenades from our favorite British underdogs. After their Fake Away Show, we were jonesing for the real thing, which has landed like a Christmas present down a FADER-shaped chimney. You should be obsessed now, too, FYI.
Video: Magistrates Play “Heartbreak” + “Make This Work” Outside on Some Futon Frames
- story THE FADER
Magistrates get into some acoustic flamenco breakdown on the last third of “Heartbreak.” “Make This Work” (which is after the jump) maybe doesn’t translate it’s spunky power to acoustics and soft-covered snare perfectly, but “Heartbreak,” honest to god, this version might be more killer than the smooth electric fanfare of the original. Okay, we just listened to the original and it’s not. We haven’t quite figure out the wily je ne sais quoi of Magistrates—what it is up their slightly corny and fully devoted heart-on-sleeve sleeves that is so tantalizing. Maybe it’s the British otherness. Maybe its the spoken word-ish breakdowns. Maybe it’s that we don’t have cars and want to drive to the beach listening to the new Vampire Weekend but there won’t be one by summer and something has to fulfill our white guy yearnings. Not that Magistrates is going to have an album by then either.
Video: Magistrates, “Heartbreak”
- story THE FADER
If you are cool enough to live in the UK, go to iTunes and download Magistrates “Heartbreak” for free on iTunes. (Also, can you get that Grizzly Bear UK iTunes bonus track for us? We will Paypal you £0.79.) If you don’t live there, you can still buy “Heartbreak” for a dollar, as it’s just come out as a digital EP. Are they ever going to have an album? Are they going to break our heart (jokes!) forever? This is going to be one of those relationships where we see our partner’s potential but they never do and thus neither does the world around them and we chide and chide and they go deeper in a hole of weird aggression and nothing good ever happens. Please please please fill the Maroon 5 sized hole in our hearts, Magistrates.
Video/Stream: Magistrates Are Still Awesome, Still Don’t Have An Album
- story THE FADER
But it looks like they might soon. It’s been forever since we freaked out over “Make This Work,” so it was a relief this morning when we got the latest update from the sporadically sent Magistrates mailing list. “Sorry for disappearing from the face of the earth for a while, however we have been making our debut album…….AND NOW WE ARE BACK!!!!!” Hell yeah dudes. And they are back with a snippet of their new single, “Heartbreak” that comes out, uh, in another two months. It’s a little Maroon 5—not that that’s a bad thing, “This Love” is pretty tight—but it’s not quite the direction we were expecting. Still, we’re holding our breaths. Until then (whenever then is), we poked around and found the above live video of the group from late last year playing a bunch of new songs. We’re getting Franz Ferdinand of the future vibes. That’s how you wear a shiny shirt.
Freeload/Video: Magistrates, “Make This Work”
- story THE FADER
If you’re not currently reading our weekly columns, you’re probably missing out on heatrocks (?) like this one from the Essex-bred Magistrates, who just signed to XL Recordings in the UK. Sam Richards wrote about these guys back in April in his Dollars to Pounds column, and we have been playing the hell out of “Make This Work” ever since. XL mixed and mastered that demo version and just put it up on the Magistrates official site along with the song’s video. If you like split-screens and falsettos, this is going to make your day. If you live in the UK, Magistrates are going to make some other day because they’re playing a bunch of shows there in July and August. Check the dates at their MySpace and check XL Recordings next month for details on the release of the “Make This Work” single.
Download: Magistrates, “Make This Work” (requires email sign-up)
Dollars To Pounds: ’Strate To The Top
- story THE FADER
Thanks to jokers like the Wombats, Scouting For Girls and One Night Only, the currency of indie-pop has become so devalued that, these days, to admit to an occasional weakness for nice boys with guitars playing songs that sound good on the radio is about as socially acceptable as secretly photographing your neighbour’s kids in the paddling pool. But we can’t listen to doom metal and kuduro all day, right? Luckily there are still a few gangs of clued-up suburban whippersnappers putting just enough spin on the old formula to pierce our jaded defences. There’s been a lot of industry agitation surrounding Essex lads Magistrates in the last couple of months, and justifiably so.
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posted on Apr 2, 2008 in DOLLARS TO POUNDS tags Cajun Dance Party, Johnny Foreigner, Magistrates, Mystery Jets, rock
