Now Playing: Here We Go Magic – ‘Make Up Your Mind’

Here We Go Magic - A Different Ship

Now Playing – twice every week, a roundtable of our writers will give their views on some of the recently-released new tracks. It’s a simple as that! If you want to tell us what you think of the song, feel free to leave a comment below.

Track: ‘Make Up Your Mind’ by Here We Go Magic

Average Grade: 5.8

Tom: ’Make Up Your Mind’ is a list song, with a bass-fired groove like soft focus Talking Heads.  It also has some seriously inaudible lyrics buried at the bottom of the mix, which makes it a pretty frustrating listen.  The chorus is a cry of exasperation, but what’s getting Luke Temple so upset is anyone’s guess.  He starts off with first kisses but, by the time he gets onto”Sniffing eggs” and “Face smashed in / swinging door”, his train of thought seems to have vanished into the night. 6/10

Antonio: Secretly Canadian is a label that can do no wrong in my eyes; they’ve put out some of the best stuff I’ve heard in the past year or so and this track from Here We Go Magic, purveyors of breezy psychedelia and disjointed pop melodies a la Clap Your Hands, is no exception. Claustrophobic, pulsating and reminiscent of early Orange Juice, ‘Make Up Your Mind’ burrows it’s way into your head until your feet begin tapping and you begin to get lost in its hypnotic repetition. 7/10

Kenny: It’s musically reasonably jolly and reminded me at times of early Wire and Sledgehammer-era Peter Gabriel but having listened to it via the office PC in order to get that Radio 1-like feeling it fails to grab one’s attention and just chunders away in the background before stopping rather abruptly. On the whole then nothing special. 5/10

Rob: From the opening ‘thud tsch’ of the drums you can tell a lot of thought has gone into the production of this track from one-man-band turned band member Luke Temple. While the drums stick to a steady beat and the guitar forms a simple loop, it’s the gradually building layers that make ‘Make Up Your Mind’ what it is. Crashing synths meld with Temple’s sprechtsung vocals and undulating keys before descending into ambient electro-strings. This is simplicity and modernity viewed through an ’80s tinted lens. 8/10

Stephanie: This is the first time I’ve heard any material from this band and will indeed be the last. I pressed play, then replay, then played it again but no matter how many times I kept listening to it it was still a monotonous and bland concoction of embarrassing psychedelic outbursts of synth and uninspiring vocals. 2/10

Stef: It’s a nice, fun, up-tempo song with a bit of surfy ’60s feel (at least, for me, but I haven’t seen anyone else talk about it so, yeah…). I imagine people doing that swim dance to this they did back then. I think the music drowning out the vocals actually is very clever, because I think it narrates a bit about people having so many options so many things they might do or they might want to do, so many ways to build your identity, that one thought hasn’t even been developed and then the next new idea is already taking over. So there’s no real focus. I like it gives out that connotation, with that said, it’s about a minute too long for what it is, and did someone just knock over the recording equipment abruptly halting the song? 6.5/10

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