SUNDAY JULY 27TH, 8PM
$15

Cuddle Magic
Cuddle Magic have been a band for a long time. That concept alone is a contrary one, because bands tend to be fleeting, real bands I mean, with the same anomalous combination of people every time that amounts to a greater sum, a hard-to-pin down easy-to-marvel at perfect storm of individuals interplaying. Cuddle Magic are that kind of band. Scheduling, time, finances, geographies, none of those threats have put a stop to Cuddle Magic. The beast continues to breathe, patiently, and it calmly roars another day with their new record Underwater.

In an intimate recording studio in Los Angeles, I sit in a packed room as Cuddle Magic plays their new songs for a willing crowd, the band clustered in the center of the room, puzzle piecing together, pump organ into bass clarinet, tiny synthesizer resting on organ, a single drum. Kristin Slipp sings. Ben Lazar Davis sings. Alec Spiegelman sings. Christopher MacDonald sings. Dave Flaherty sings. Beautifully. You're never sure what sound is going to come from who, the bass clarinet plays what a bass guitar would normally play, the pump organ drones what might normally be a string quartet, a willing suspension of disbelief dominoes throughout the room. Soon enough, the notion of "normal" is in the rearview, and we're quicksand in the hourglass of the band, chasing them from song to song, feeling to feeling, willing participants in Cuddle Magic's worldbuilding.

It's completely understandable if you read that and ask, yeah but what do they sound like? To which I'd reply, yeah, what do they sound like? There are dynamics, but it's never loud. There's sophistication and unpredictability in the harmony, but the music never tries to be too smart. The lyrics can be darkly funny, but you're allowed in on the joke. In that way, there's an inclusivity to Cuddle Magic's universe, superbly challenging by design but there's always a place for you at the table. Or, in their case, in the bathroom.

Yes, yes, let's get this out of the way, their newest album was recorded in a large, reverberant bathroom in Long Island, a sequel of sorts to their previous record which was recorded in the same bathroom. Jimi Hendrix had Electric Lady, the Band had Big Pink, Cuddle Magic have...this bathroom. If that's not a metaphor for the evolution of the music industry, I don't know what is, but, whatever the case may be, this space became the ideal location to pull all six members from the gravity of daily life and allow them to sink into a creative hyperflow with each other, and boy oh boy has it paid off. Everyone wrote together, piggybacking on each other's ideas and implementing limitations to maintain a productive writing process while everyone could be in the same room at the same time. Those ideas combined and magnified over the course of the session, in the same way that frequencies magnify as they reverberate off a tile floor, and we're left with a visceral capture of a moment in time, as all great records are.

https://cuddlemagic.bandcamp.com/
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Rose Stoller
Rose Stoller is a New York based multidisciplinary artist, vocalist, and songwriter. Sometimes whimsical, romantic, often somber or daring. In her original music, she is a delicate songwriter who merges an influence of contemporary jazz, R&B, Laurel Canyon folk rock, Bossa Nova, and ambient soundscapes into a corner of her own. 

                    

Graduate of LaGuardia High School’s famed Drama Department, Rose participates in theater and music respectively, and interdisciplinary pieces such as Ragnar Kjartansson’s “Romantic Songs of the Patriarchy” at The Guggenheim Museum in NYC. She was featured in 2017 and 2018’s Jazz In The Valley festival in Poughkeepsie, New York.
https://www.rosestoller.com/