Jonathan Lobo – Magic

Jonathan Lobo is back with another great new song. Magic is just released and we urge you to take a listen.

We were bowled over by Lobo’s Start Again that we reviewed back in January. Lobo is a relatively new artist but we were astounded at the quality of his previous track. We really were very excited to see his name at the top of our review pile again.

Unsurprisingly, we were not disappointed. Magic is a super funky, super catchy indie pop/rock song that’s well written, well mixed, well performed and well mastered. What more could a listener want!

We love how Magic starts low passed and then the full sound pushes into the song, making for an interesting dynamic start. We were all nodding our heads at the funky rhythm of Magic, and the chorus of layered backing vocals fills out the sound superbly. We particularly like the use of low octave vocals. This helps to fill out the space so much in a song and it amazes us how rarely this technique is used. Lobo uses it masterfully.

There’s some great separation in the song, so you are absolutely certain what section you’re in. The choruses are catchy, with lots more vocals and a repeated “five more minutes” line that quickly has you singing along.

In the middle of the song, there’s a great breakdown that gives you a little rest from the funky rhythm. Drenched in reverbs, this section slowly builds on the percussions until you’re feeling almost like there’s a train style shuffle with handclaps.

Great bend on the vocals on the final word of the breakdown “say” until you’re into a double chorus to end the song, with lots of vocals and instruments coming and going to show that the song is building rather than just repeating the chorus because that’s what the books say you should do! The song builds and builds to a stinger ending, making this a perfect just-shy-of-3.5-minutes commercial radio track.

From a production stance, we’d suggest a high pass at 35Hz. There’s a lot of low rumble in the track that most home hi-fi can’t handle, so it’d be best to filter out in order to give more headroom to the rest of the track. A notch out around 60-65Hz will deal with a slightly boomy frequency in the kick that is a little dominant and a wide boost in the upper mids centred around 5kHz will give some more presence to the track, especially to the vocals which just feel a little dark in that area.

Once again, Johnathan Lobo has impressed us with a smooth, well written commercially viable track that oozes class and talent. This guy is going places.