For those with a life soundtracked by music, there are specific formative moments that help shape the years that follow. Growing up, it’s often the records a family member provides for us at a young age that creates a startling, yet exciting, gateway into an enchanting aural world. As a teenager, it’s the records that we seek out independently, the ones that speak to us in ways nothing else possibly could. And as adults, we return to the records that rekindle that spark we often feel we lost along the way, the ones that transport us back to those early years, now listened to with a stronger sense of self and seasoned experience. 

That last moment is rooted in escapism, the insatiable desire to be somewhere else entirely, free from the shackles of the present day and all – the good, the bad, and the very bad – that comes with it. For The Magic City, the new Boston modern rock band featuring members of The Daily Pravda, Reverse, The Daylilies, and Graveyard of the Atlantic, escapism is the means and the end…

Sometime in the past year (maybe longer ago, or perhaps more recently), with the dense air of the global pandemic weighing down any real sense of permanence and society’s lingering apprehension sparking the desire to start something anew, Adam Anderson (lead guitar, vocals), David Jackel (rhythm guitar, vocals, synth); Mike Quinn (bass guitar, vocals, synth); and Ken Marcou (drums, drum programming, percussion) came together to form The Magic City. Quinn was no stranger to the other three’s more known band, The Daily Pravda, serving as their longtime producer and frequent collaborator and arranger. 

But this was no rehash of the past, or lazy echo of prior aural seductions. Each musician shared a common vision as an exciting path forward – the punchiness and brevity of a British Invasion single; the sharpness and calculated rage of the post-punk era; the noisy end of the dial of American college rock; and the drama and intrigue of the darker side of ‘90s Britpop. It’s where 24 Hour Party People, Donnie Darko, The Lost Boys, and Black Mirror all reside in a saved digital library or dusty DVD rack of yesterday. And the sound, drawn together with kaleidoscopic fury, emits a sensation of our parents’ records from the ‘60s framed by when we first encountered them in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

The goal of The Magic City was to channel the fierce independence and curiosity of their youth, respectfully bypassing the bands that amplified that middle era for each member, and in the process, transpose two storied cities as beacons of inspiration. Because here, the quartet’s deliberate new world is a fantasy land reflecting reality in a cracked mirror, quite like the media cited above, as this fictional place is built upon what we already canvas: The companion cities of London and Boston.      

The name The Magic City comes from a recurring dream a band member has had for years, in which they are trying to get from the American city to the English capital. In this dream the layouts and landmarks of the cities are completely wrong – one of the non-existent London hubs is the view from Boston’s Government Center looking down towards the harbor – but they make perfect sense within the dream. The cities are connected… sometimes linearly, sometimes interdimensionally.

In this landscape, common features overlap: Boston and Cambridge are divided by the Thames River, with lively waterfronts and plentiful pedestrian bridges. Traversing from Harvard Square to Allston involves crossing the Westminster Bridge; Big Ben and the Custom House are one and the same, and here, is taller than the Empire State Building. Like both cities’ cold and detached demeanor, the atmosphere straddles gloomy and invigorating. It is perpetually dusk; the sky and skyline are glassy shades of cold blue and gray, punctured with electric lights. Ocean salt glitters the air, and the chilly wind feels like autumn drifting into winter. Early Magic City songs like “Roadrunner Vs. Your Mother” and “I Love Lucy” retain the sentiments and scenes of both cities like a cacophonous orgy of youth, a weathered take on lofty  arena ambitions, derailed only by our own sense of self.  

In the dream, the protagonist often gets very close to his destination in London, only to end up detained by something mundane, like being stuck in a stalled train, or in a restaurant waiting for the bill. The anxiety is reminiscent of Little Nemo trying each night to find his way to the palace in Slumberland, and always waking up just before he arrives. This city, built from reorganized pieces of real cities, also recalls its namesake, the book The Magic City, which features a sprawling model city come to life, built from found objects like books, toys, and kitchenware. 

But here, found objects are a lifetime of collected albums and singles, reconstructed into new forms that reflect the wonder we all felt when hearing the music for the first time: like our parents serving up The Beatles in grade school, or the mad dash in college to learn everything about a new favorite band, allowing it to transform you into the person you always knew existed somewhere under the layers. 

In December 2022, The Magic City demoed six songs at Bluetone Studio in Somerville, and Shave Media in Allston, and soon those efforts will see the light of day. The story begins, in sound and vision, with the aforementioned debut single “Roadrunner Vs. Your Mother,” set for release in November 2023, with additional music to follow in 2024. 

The drive that permeates and motivates The Magic City songs is the same sense of urgent longing for an elusive destination that lies just on the edge of consciousness, and always fades whenever we get too close. Like a memory that once felt so real, relegated now to the back alleys of what we hold closest to our reality.

Welcome to The Magic City. You’ve been there before; but not like this.