''The Magic'' is the thirteenth

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

Deerhoof Deerhoof are an American musical group formed in San Francisco in 1994. They currently consist of founding drummer Greg Saunier, bassist and singer Satomi Matsuzaki, and guitarists John Dieterich and Ed Rodriguez. Beginning as an improvised noi ...

, released in June 2016 through

Polyvinyl In polymer chemistry, vinyl polymers are a group of polymers derived from substituted vinyl () monomers. Their backbone is an extended alkane chain . In popular usage, "vinyl" refers only to polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Examples Vinyl polymers are ...

Production

In April 2016, Deerhoof announced ''The Magic'', its first

since their 2014 ''

La Isla Bonita "La Isla Bonita" is a song by American singer Madonna from her third studio album '' True Blue'' (1986). Written and produced by Madonna and Patrick Leonard, with additional lyrics by Bruce Gaitsch, the song was originally presented by Leonard ...

''. Joseph Baughman created the music video for the album's "The Devil and his Anarchic Surrealist Retinue". Baughman described his style as a

slow-motion Slow motion (commonly abbreviated as slo-mo or slow-mo) is an effect in film-making whereby time appears to be slowed down. It was invented by the Austrian priest August Musger in the early 20th century. This can be accomplished through the use o ...

improvisation Improvisation is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. Improvisation in the performing arts is a very spontaneous performance without specific or scripted preparation. The skills of impr ...

. The clay animated video features chessboard pieces and multicolored

minotaurs In Greek mythology, the Minotaur ( , ;. grc, ; in Latin as ''Minotaurus'' ) is a mythical creature portrayed during classical antiquity with the head and tail of a bull and the body of a man or, as described by Roman poet Ovid, a being "pa ...

. Gary McQuiggin created the video for "Dispossessor", featuring Professor Raphael Appleblossom (eccentric alter ego of author Matthew Watkins) "demonstrating" the Banach-Tarski Paradox.

Critical reception

The album received "generally favorable" reviews, according to

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Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

. ''

Exclaim! ''Exclaim!'' is a Canadian music and entertainment publisher based in Toronto, which features in-depth coverage of new music across all genres with a special focus on Canadian and emerging artists. The monthly Exclaim! print magazine publishes 7 ...

s Anna Alger was extremely positive, writing that the album "finds the wholly original and ever-engaging band at their most cohesive and versatile — which is saying a lot, given their dynamic history."

Track listing

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Magic 2016 albums Deerhoof albums Polyvinyl Record Co. albums