AUGUST

The debut LP, “It’s Not The Wand, It’s The Magic” is out now. Buy the heavyweight vinyl LP or CD (with free download!) direct from ourbandcamp shop, or download it from the iTunes Store

August have never been a band to court publicity. There has been much mystery surrounding the band so far, and their reputation has spread largely by word of mouth, and rests mainly on a series of off-the-radar live performances, most of these at private parties at their rehearsal studio in Camden Town, North London. Nevertheless these now legendary shows have been enough to build them a following of passionate insiders eager to spread the word…

Now finally we have something tangible from August to spread their name further afield. The debut LP, entitled ‘It’s Not The Wand, It’s The Magic’ is now complete, and more than lives up to expectations…Fans of their various live incarnations may be surprised by the breadth of styles they’re able to incorporate on record. No attempt has been made to capture the free-form space-funk exploration of their party sets. Instead this direction has been baked into edible chunks on 4 or 5 tracks, and it shares album space with an altogether broader, more ambitious August sound, with greater emphasis on vocalist Vedina Mose and her lyrical flights of fancy, the extravagant orchestrations of Raphael Mann, and their emergence as an extraordinary songwriting partnership…

It’s a pleasant surprise to find that they can write as well as they can jam, and that the breadth of their ambition extends so far beyond the dancefloor. So alongside the Sly Stone, Prince and De La Soul that we might have expected we get splashes of The Beach Boys, Kate Bush, Tom Waits, Laura Nyro, MF Doom and The Delfonics too, with a knack for pop hooks that consistently brings their musical and lyrical experimentation into focus…

The track which perhaps comes closest to the live experience is the medley of their own ‘It’s Not The Wand, It’s The Magic’ with Archie Bell & The Drells’ ‘Tighten Up’ which provides the album’s finale. Recorded live in the studio, this version teases every emotion out of the two chord theme that the two songs share, from quiet reflection through to wild abandon, before winding the record down to an immaculate close, leaving us feeling, the way those party sets always did, full of genuine hope…

The August manifesto was always to confront the world head-on, dig their fingers into all the cracks, and come back showing the beauty of it all, the life to be found inside of everything. ‘It’s Not The Wand, It’s The Magic’ makes a convincing first chapter…