Let Me Hold You While You Fail is a slow-dive plunge into defeat; its downcast vocals winding their way around a hazy dreamscape that becomes inescapable. Its makers, Aleks Badhem and Lucy Roleff, met at a Ned Colette gig in Berlin. The two separate support acts joined forces and returned to Australia as dream-pop duo Magic Hands.
Badham’s baritone vocals and deadpan lyrics have always had a whiff of Stephin Merritt about them and this is even more evident with Magic Hands’ electronic folk dressing. The dual vocals telling tales of glum circumstances recall early Magnetic Fields and the Future Bible Heroes sound in particular.
The idiosyncratic, often chaotic pop of Aleks and the Ramps was tempered to a degree on that band’s last album, 2012’s Facts, and it’s softened even further for this collaborative album. Roleff is usually at the forefront and steals the show with her seductive, shivering vocal. Although there are moments where you wish for a little more of the Ramps’ oft-kilter playfulness, Let Me Hold you While You Fail is intricately layered like a rich lasagne and, before long, it firmly grips you in its hypnotic spell.
BY CHRIS GIRDLER
Best Track: Limousine
If You Like These, You’ll Like This: TheFuture Bible Heros, Beach House, Purity Ring, Goldfrapp
In A Word: Touching
