Puzzle Muteson’s Mechanical Kiss Is Out Now
Puzzle Muteson’s first album in eight years. His unmistakable voice finds a new setting in ten songs: dense electronics, deep bass and the restless movement of Bangkok.
Eight years after Swum, Puzzle Muteson reappears somewhere else. Mechanical Kiss, his fourth album for Bedroom Community, is out today on CD and digital.
Written on foot
The record began with sounds sent from the mountains of Acquarossa by the producer Manuele Chiaravalloti: thick beats, submerged basslines and dark, unstable textures. In Bangkok, Terry Magson loaded them onto an MP3 player and walked, writing lyrics and recording vocal ideas into his phone as he went. Melodies and words often arrived before the first listen had finished. “Shiota” is the exception to the Bangkok story: it was written in Istanbul.
A different climate
The eerie coastal light of the Isle of Wight gives way here to Bangkok’s concrete heat, sleepless movement and dense nocturnal rhythm. What once seemed tied to salt air, fingerpicked guitar and open space now sits among traffic haze, humid rooms, hard surfaces and low frequencies. The album is closer to the nocturnal unease of Tricky’s Maxinquaye than to the spare intimacy of Nick Drake’s Pink Moon, and the voice remains at the centre, surrounded by deep bass and restless electronics.
This honey covered kiss
The smudge around your lips.— from “Honey Wasp”
Finished in New York and Reykjavík
The recordings then travelled to New York and Reykjavík, where Nico Muhly, Benjamin Meyer and Giovanni Corgiat Mecio added keys and programming. On “Above the Stage”, the Dutch singer Chantal Acda enters briefly, her voice suspended beside Terry’s, somewhere between closeness and distance. Manuele and Valgeir Sigurðsson produced the album, and Valgeir mixed and mastered it at Greenhouse Studios in Reykjavík, with additional mixing by Francesco Fabris.
Listen
Begin with “Shiota”, or settle in for all ten songs.
Credits
- Terry Magson: vocals, lyrics
- Chantal Acda: additional vocals
- Manuele Chiaravalloti: engineering, production, recording, electronics
- Valgeir Sigurðsson: production, programming and electronics, mixing, mastering
- Francesco Fabris: additional mixing
- Nico Muhly: keys
- Benjamin Meyer: keys, programming
- Giovanni Corgiat Mecio: keys, programming
Mixed and mastered at Greenhouse Studios, Reykjavík. Photographs by Terry Magson, including the portrait above. Layout and design by R. Michael Hendrix.
About Puzzle Muteson
Puzzle Muteson is the recording name of the Isle of Wight songwriter Terry Magson. He first appeared on Bedroom Community with En Garde (2011), followed by Theatrics (2014) and Swum (2018): records built around his voice, intricate guitar playing and a lyrical world at once intimate, strange and exposed. Mechanical Kiss (HVALUR47) is his first new album in eight years, released by Bedroom Community and distributed by The state51 Conspiracy.