Coming off one of 2015’s most surprising (and 2nd best, according to Transverso's end-of-year list) album releases with Are You Alone?, Majical Cloudz have followed up their stellar junior record with a five song EP entitled, Wait & See. Announced via Tumblr, the five-song EP dropped simultaneously with the band’s Winter 2016 tour.
Frontman Devon Welsh accounted for the five-song EP’s via Tumblr,
“WE PUT TOGETHER THIS ‘EP’ OF SONGS THAT WE RECORDED WHEN WE WERE WORKING ON ‘ARE YOU ALONE?’, BUT WHICH DIDN’T FIT ON THAT ALBUM FOR ONE REASON OR ANOTHER. THEY AREN’T MORE RECENT THAN THE SONGS ON ‘AYA’ – THEY DATE FROM DIFFERENT PERIODS OF TIME, ONE OF THEM IS AMONG THE EARLIEST SONGS WRITTEN FOR ‘AYA’ AND OTHER ARE MORE RECENT. DESPITE THE FACT THAT IT’S A COLLECTION OF SONGS THAT DIDN’T MAKE THE RECORD, I THINK THERE IS A FEELING THAT LINKS THEM ALL TOGETHER…”
Ominous and brooding as ever, Wait & See maintains the same minimalist soundscapes lush with meditative lyricism that made Are You Alone? so beguiling. Standout track “Heaven” presents Welsh at his most forthright, addressing his tendency to opine through song, the subsequent consequence of doing so, and the ultimate death of relationships when they’re run through a sonic strainer.
Cleanup track “Pretty” seems to further examine the wrought consequences of relationships and their proximity to art – how to properly denominate a single thought from an entire experience, and highlight what is only pertinent to expression. The song’s narrator continually questions if their actions hurt or offend the person who is closest to them and the song, suggesting that the song is not intended to spurn, but rather preserve the sanctity of what inspired it in the first place.
Despite the misfit nature of the EP and how the individual tracks came about, Wait & See is one of Welsh’s strongest lyrical efforts as Majical Cloudz, only magnified by the EP’s lunar tonalities. Bleak and beautiful, the Montreal duo continue to ascend and explore new terrain on both sonic and idiosyncratic planes that leave us waiting for more indeed.