The Beat Surrender

Magic Arm is the alias of Manchester’s Marc Rigelsford. This ep was recorded by Marc at home on his computer and took two years to complete. The ep has seven tracks, which may explain why it took so long to put together that and doing this alone at home must have been difficult.

Each track has a slightly different sound from the powerful title track to the 60’s influenced People Need Order. I Want You To Want Me is more electro pop (although it did sound a little like the Casio keyboard we bought my son when he was five years old).

Next track DAQ (Don’t ask questions) is even more electronic in sound, however for me this track didn’t quite work. It sounded just too disjointed. You Should Know is a little country influenced, it also had some very strange background noises going on. This track is so quirky I loved it. Move Out had even more odd background noises at one point it sounded like the local Indian restaurant in overdrive. However, this combined with the other strange noises left me a little confused so not so sure about this track.

Last track was Reprise, this again was very strange sounded a like an orchestra warming up different instruments playing different notes and not really in time. Have to say not 100% sure either way about this, some tracks I liked other hated, but overall credit must be given for trying to be different. For me the good stand out track (in a good way) were You Should Know, People Need Order and the title track Outdoor Games.