SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: CUDDLE MAGIC – BATH

Cuddle Magic
Bath
Northern Spy Records

Album titles are not often appropriately named. In this case however, it couldn’t be more appropriate. Bath, by New York/Philadelphia sextet Cuddle Magic. Why? Very simple reason – it was recorded in a bath. Literally. Six musicians sat in a bathroom with 23 microphones around them and recorded the album.

Cuddle Magic were also able to catch that watery, gentle feeling when you fill your bathtub with water, pour in some bubble solution and smelly salts, light some incense and candles, and immerse yourself into that water. Alone, as a couple or with five other people, as in this case. Essentially, it is a full-on melody set that explores all the variations that can fall under a category that is labeled as chamber pop. When you listen to the album, perhaps you don’t wonder how Cuddle Magic were able to fit in, not only say a bass clarinet, or the readily-available faucet, but a percussion set and a pump organ?

Whatever they did, they were still able to exude that magic part of the band’s name in their music, as that subdued afterglow seen on the album’s cover.

One for those bathtub moments, for sure, and elsewhere.

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