On "Clean Up Your Dreams", a murky, mid-tempo reverie off Montreal duo Majical Cloudz' last LP II, vocalist Devon Welsh sings, "If you want someone, start trying to fix yourself." At least, I think he does. As on most of the record, Welsh's vocals are cryptic mumbles buried beneath an avalanche of samples, loops, and synth drones. No matter, though: you got the idea that a Majical Cloudz song wasn't supposed to be about what Welsh was saying, but more about the experience of getting sucked into its Spin Art swirl of smudged tones, contrasting textures, and fragmented melodies. II had hits and misses, but even when it was firing on all cylinders (the sunset blaze of "Francisco", or the heavenly "Dream World", which featured the ubiquitous falsetto of Welsh's close friend Grimes), it kept the listener at arm's length. It felt appropriate that one lyric of "Dream" began "I'm livin' in a dream world…" and then trailed off into indiscernible mumbles.
That particular song now feels prophetic not because of its sound, but because of its title: in the time between II and their striking new EP, Turns Turns Turns, Majical Cloudz have gone and cleaned up their dreams. From the EP's no-frills cover to Welsh's appearance in the lead-off track's video (starkly shaved head; Rollins-minimal wardrobe), everything about their image is now streamlined and direct. Their sound has been de-cluttered too, and the songs on the EP greatly benefit from the added breathing room. Matthe Otto's tracks are immersive yet understated, while Welsh's vocals are confident and high in the mix, his melodies, as on the excellent "What That Was", given time to unfurl and bloom. The leap between II and Turns is so dramatic that Majical Cloudz almost sound like a different band, but listen closely and you'll hear echoes of their past: the particular way these songs feel personal, internal, and move with the churning rhythm of dreams. Turns Turns Turns documents Majical Cloudz' newfound confidence; it's the sound of a band trusting enough in their vision to funnel it into something simpler and more direct.
And yet, there's something almost disarmingly vulnerable about these songs. "My idea of why I would make music became a lot simpler," Welsh said in a recent interview, describing a shift in his songwriting process that's happened over the past year. "Songs became a way to say something to someone that I wouldn't be able to say as clearly in person." That's the starkest difference between these tracks and their older material: Majical Cloudz has suddenly become very much about what Welsh is saying. These songs have the expressive power of confessions, or handwritten letters. Take the melodic and mesmerizing opening track, "Turns, Turns, Turns", which starts with a hypnotic loop of Welsh's voice singing, "I…" and trailing off. The song stammers like this for about a minute, as though it's on the brink of letting us in on a secret but keeps changing its mind. When he finally blurts it out-- "I did something free, I can't tell if it's wrong"-- the moment feels like a catharsis, and a breakthrough for their whole project. It's hard to believe this is a band that once seemed mysterious and obtuse.
A lot of this comes from the fact that Welsh (who also once twirled knobs in now defunct electro-dreamers Pop Winds) is now embracing his inner frontman. He and Otto both used to man an assortment of samplers, drum machines, and synths during the band's live show, but now he's exclusively on the mic. It's a good look. You wouldn't know from II that Welsh actually has legitimate pipes-- a strong tenor voice that doesn't need reverb or manipulations to sound powerful. Trusting in simple pop melodies and never feeling a need to obscure the most enjoyable elements of these songs, Turns recalls the step Grimes took between her collage-like early LPs and her breakthrough EP Darkbloom. In both cases, the lesson's the same: streamlining your inputs doesn't have to mean compromising your vision-- it usually just makes an artist sound more uniquely and confidently themselves.
Side B of Turns isn't quite as solid, but that's because the front half sets the bar so high. The most powerful song they've done yet is "What That Was"-- a largehearted, plaintive ode to Welsh's friendship with the Montreal artist Neil Corcoran. It's like a minimalist pop hybrid of Arab Strap's "The First Big Weekend" and LCD Soundsystem's "All My Friends": a catalog of an average weekend's glorious banalities (going to friends' shows, wandering around until Friday becomes Saturday) shot through with just the right amount of warmth and sentiment. Like "Turns", it blurts out the things that seem difficult or too obvious to say in person: "Hey, I think that you're the best friend that I've ever had.../ I didn't think about it until now." Though the lyrics are full of specificity about Neil and places in Montreal, they never use self-referentiality as a distancing effect; they just express more clearly what's so universal about the song's feeling. Like all of Turns, it's got the warmth and force of a friendly handshake, a handwritten invitation into Majical Cloudz' dream world.
