Stream the demo for our upcoming song ‘Summer Phase’
This is a solo guitar-and-voice demo recorded at home. Full-band version coming in June. Submit your email address and we'll send you a free copy of the final version when it's done. Thanks for your support. xx Magnetic Island
(Credits: Played, sung, recorded and written by Lisa Liu)

Download as 320kbps MP3
(shared under a CC BY-NC-SA license)



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Download Magnetic Island’s ‘A Dream’
(320kbps MP3)

David Kirschenbaum runs a paper called Boog City here in NYC. Various times throughout the year, David puts on these events where a handful of bands cover an entire "classic" album. We've played a few of these tributes in the past, and we got asked to play another one back in December 2009.This one was for Lou Reed/John Cale's "Songs for Drella," an album that was inspired by -- and dedicated to -- the pair's old mentor and friend, Andy Warhol.

We were asked to perform two songs at the show, "Forever Changed" and "A Dream." The original version of "A Dream" is really open, ambient, and sparse, featuring only guitar, piano and voice. But a four-note descending riff (G-F-A-G) that repeats throughout the song caught my attention. I thought to myself that maybe I should try to build a song around these four notes and take "A Dream" in a totally different direction. So I sat down at a piano and built the structure of the song around this riff. A few months earlier, I had seen a documentary on Phillip Glass that was really inspiring, so I had his style of piano playing in the back of my head. After the big dissonant piano hits in the beginning of our version of "A Dream," the song "officially" starts with a rumbling, wave-like piano part -- that was my homage to Phillip Glass.

We decided to perform as a duo for the Boog City event, the first time we'd ever done so. Ahead of the performance I recorded a track of drums and noise guitar and threw it on my iPod so I could play piano alongside the track live while Sue (aka SMV) did her vocals. Despite the fact that we were performing in a way that was really new to us, our version of "A Dream" was well-received; people were digging it. A few even said it was the highlight of the show. Sue felt our version of "A Dream" was worthy of recording, and she started talking about getting into the studio in the new year.

2010 rolls in and SMV was still serious about recording "A Dream." I was really into the idea, but I didn't want to use a drum machine or MIDI part for the drums. I wanted the feel that only a live drummer can bring to a song. So I called up my friend Nikkie McLeod from Telenovela Star to tackle the drum part.

And then I thought, you know what, I don't want to have to overdub the guitar part in the studio. I wanted all the parts played live, in one room. So I called my friend TJ Richards from Calves to see if he wanted to do the noise guitar part. TJ is a master when it comes to noise guitar, and fortunately for us, he was down. All four of us got together and rehearsed 3 times, and we went into the studio and banged it out.

What I really loved about playing with TJ and Nikkie is that they had no ego about their parts, and the song was growing and changing each time we played it. This held true in the studio as well. The recording engineer, Jim Bentley, made a few key suggestions that impacted the arrangement and vibe of the song. This could have caused a meltdown, with people getting upset about having to adjust their parts on the fly. Not with TJ and Nikkie. They kept their cool and we took the song to an entirely new place. We trusted the process, but more so, we trusted each other.

Which leads us to why we have decided to change our band name from RENMINBI to MAGNETIC ISLAND. SMV and I have lived and breathed RENMINBI for 7 years now. We formed the band in our early 20's as a drums-keys-guitar trio and stayed true to that vision. We are extremely proud of the songs we created for The People's EP, The Great Leap, The Phoenix, and Surface, and stand behind them all the way. However, we are ready to shed our old skin and our old ways of doing things. At the very least, the name change is meant to signify a new way of thinking about, playing, and creating music. Magnetic Island will be more like a collective than a typical band, a project dedicated to collaboration with all the many people we'd like to collaborate with, whenever we can get them together with us in one room. It will be about writing as many songs as possible and putting them out while they're still fresh, dismissing the old "rules" of how to be a band, how to put out music, how to interact with fans and critics, etc., etc., etc.

We hope you'll be willing to follow us into this new phase, and we welcome your thoughts about where we should take this new project and who you'd like to see take part. We certainly want you to take part.

Take a listen to "A Dream," our first release as Magnetic Island. They'll be more soon.

-Lisa

PS: It will take us a little while to fully transition to a new website, as well as Facebook and MySpace pages, etc. But our new Twitter account — @magneticband — is up and running as of today.

Some Notes on "A Dream"

You can read about "Songs for Drella" on Wikipedia, but I thought I'd share a brief synopsis here. First performed live in 1989 and then recorded in 1990, the album marked the first time Lou Reed and John Cale had worked together since Cale and the Velvet Underground abruptly parted ways in 1965. It was the sudden death of Andy Warhol that acted as catalyst for their reunion. Andy had a profound impact not only on the VU, but on both men individually, and "Songs for Drella" was their attempt to process the loss.

"A Dream" is said to be pieced together from Warhol's own diaries, and is sung from his perspective. On the original, Cale handles the vocals and the piano, while Reed plays guitar. The song imagines Warhol encountering several important figures from his life, including Cale and Reed, during a "terrible dream." The encounters prompt him to revisit some key moments and places from his earlier days and recent past, and also to come to terms with how his life has changed since being shot and badly wounded in 1968. The song is itself a rumination on loss, as well as fate, art and mortality.

We've played many covers throughout our time as a band, but this is the first we've recorded. Let's just say it struck a chord.

-SMV

PS: We went through the proper channels to obtain a license for this cover, ensuring that Lou and John get the royalties that are due them. Anything you leave in the tip jar helps us recoup this cost, as well as the cost of recording, mixing, mastering and rehearsal. Whether you are able to leave a donation or not, we appreciate your support.