Young Magic

The beginnings of Young Magic’s new album, Still Life, coincided with singer Melati Malay revisiting her own, in her birthplace of Indonesia. Having lost her father the previous year, she returned to the island of Java to reconnect with her family and begin work on a new collection of music.
 Still Life is a deeply personal and idiosyncratic record, somewhere close to the enchanted electronic pop realms occupied by Björk and Broadcast, yet unique to Young Magic. Found sounds feature prominently across Still Life, including the Javanese gamelan, blossoming into ecstatic bursts during the climax of “Lucien.” 
 “In a way, Still Life became a kind of antithesis to a world where people tell you who to pray to, what to buy into, and who your enemies should be. Still Life is my way to celebrate music from all corners, my home without borders.” 
 Upon returning to New York, her home of 10 years, Melati put together a group of musicians and began reimagining these new musical works, enlisting cellist Kelsey Lu, multi-instrumentalist Tristan Arp, percussionist Daniel Siles and producer Isaac Emmanuel, her longtime collaborator. 
 Still Life inhabits a gorgeous, kaleidoscopic world, as delicate and intricate, as it is expansive and immersive. It walks the line between organic and mechanic, where dusty field recordings weave between warm Moogs and Prophets, where jazz breaks bump next to broken drum machines. It’s meticulously crafted outsider pop, made by obsessives, for obsessives.