piri & tommy - magic!

Splits - both romantic, and from a major label record deal - have done little to break the magic at the heart of piri & tommy. Instead the switch-up has only served to caramelise the melodic pop that always bubbled under the surface of their saccharine, UK garage-influenced sound, and introduce a touch of sunny, syrupy funk to the mix. Their Y2K approach to groove allows for a more cartoonish, vintage opulence than on previous releases, but familiarity is not lost: the rich Euro-house and drum’n’bass that carry title track ‘magic’, for example, is just as quintessentially piri & tommy as it is something new and lush.

Other cuts bask nicely under the sizzling heat of a funk-pop moodboard (case in point, the suave strut of ‘Venus’; the beachy elevator pop of ‘tom & zendaya’; the Michael Jackson vocality of ‘locked up’). As with most change, it’s often necessary, and here, Britain’s answer to Magdalena Bay prove themselves far more in tune with their proposition and future than ever before. ‘magic!’ is comfortably inclined to get a little strange without sacrificing the effortless trendiness set by its predecessors.