Magic Potion - Pink Gum

Releasing their debut EP last May, Swedish garage-punk group Magic Potion carved out a niche amongst the blue skies and scorching sunlight of holiday season. A blissed out venture through elated highs and worn out sighs of summer, debut album ‘Pink Gum’ is a continuation of that sun-scorched sound, an ode to the longest of days and lightest of nights. From the wistful excitement that comes with the promise of a vacation, through to empty afternoons spent wondering what the hell else there is to do, the Stockholm outfit manage to convey every ounce of enthusiasm, wonder, boredom, and sheer contentment induced by time spent having fun in the sun.

Recorded using the same reel-to-reel tape recorder as the EP (which almost seems as much a part of the band’s sound as the instruments they use), ‘Pink Gum’ is dazzling in its hazy nostalgia. Remembering that time they “shared a milkshake on your rooftop” and “had a nosebleed on your skateboard”, the lyrics to ‘Cola Boyys’ are rooted in such fondness and familiarity anyone would be forgiven for thinking they’d been there and been living it too.

‘Golden Power’ twangs and chimes with an air of playful rebellion, while ‘Gemz’ bubbles with the happy go lucky charm that’s always Magic Potion’s music so irresistibly enchanting. “I’m gonna be the second person in history to die outta boredom” the band cry on ‘Yummi 1’, conveying the listlessness of empty days as well as they portray they exuberance of endless nights. EP numbers ‘Deep Web’ and ‘Booored’ appear once again, the latter’s near impossibly contagious enthusiasm as fresh and freewheeling as it felt the first time around.

Out of time and out of place, ‘Pink Gum’ is as fitting a soundtrack to the summer of anyone’s wildest wishes as it is to a season spent wasted in the sunlight.