Since the early 1990s, the small town of Sackville, New Brunswick has been a hub of lo-fi, home-recorded indie rock. It was here that Julie Doiron launched the DIY label Sappy Records, spotlighting members of her band Eric’s Trip and their surrounding community before expanding into the annual SappyFest music festival. Sackville is also where Feeling Figures’ co-vocalists Zakary Slax and Kay Moon first crossed paths. For several years, they self-released songs on cassette under the name Dead Beat Poet Society, and the debut album from their new moniker has a charming homespun sensibility that sounds out of time.
The Olympia, Washington-based indie-rock institution K Records is a fitting home for Feeling Figures. Upon moving to Montreal, Slax met drummer Thomas Molander in a French language class and recruited bassist Joe Chamandy (Theee Retail Simps, Celluloid Lunch Records) to firm up the rhythm section. After scrapping the album’s initial sessions, Feeling Figures decamped to their rehearsal space and recorded Migration Magic live in one go. Revisiting older tunes from their Dead Beat Poet Society days and tossing in two covers, the group pulled together a slap-happy album that’s more about feeling the spirit than stressing over perfection.
The heavier songs written and sung by Slax sound strikingly different from the tender twee-pop tunes where Moon takes the lead. “Seek and Hide” slows down Feeling Figures’ feverish pace with clicking rim shots, before Moon’s solo acoustic number “You Were Young” strips things back even further. “I Should Tell You” foregoes guitars altogether, as Moon echoes the song’s winsome melodies on piano. When she admits “I’ve wasted a life/Trying not to pick up all the pieces/And spill them like Reese’s,” her sheepish delivery stands out like Moe Tucker’s songs for the Velvet Underground.
The songs written by Slax blur the line between indie-pop and garage-rock as they tumble toward his wigged-out guitar solos. When he shout-sings in unison with Moon on album closer “Remains,” the doubled power of their voices ups the hair-raising intensity. Slax switches up his delivery on “Sink,” with spoken-word vocals that pick up in the choruses like Ben Hozie from Bodega. On Migration Magic’s catchiest song, “Movement,” the verses sound like a lower-fi take on the Strokes, before gang vocals hit in the choruses. “I mystify myself,” they enunciate, asking an existential question: “Does my struggle speak to anyone else?”
The album’s two covers dip into disparate genres while preserving the band’s bedroom-pop intimacy. Harmonium’s “Pour Un Instant” is a rollicking homage that communicates a sense of mutual affection not often present in pastoral French prog. “Don’t Ever Let Me Know” is propelled by drum rolls around the kit, bringing the Bobby Fuller Four’s original into ’90s indie-rock territory. This broad appreciation of musical history proves they know the rules and how to break them. In the final moments of Migration Magic, Slax and Moon pose a simple plea: “If I can just be a stain on your memory/I will be complete.” With every listen, their slacker punk smudge continues to grow.
