Gaggle Of Artists Don’t Need Smoke and Mirrors For Sophomore Effort

Imagine: you’re traveling slowly down a tunnel in a beat pickup truck. Pictures of childhood, love, death, happiness, and sadness are projected against the walls while distant voices echo down the corridor. There’s something ghostly - yet comforting - about the entire trip yet you can’t quite put your finger on. Oh, and David Bowie is dancing drunkenly with Harry Houdini next to your truck.

Who Killed Harry Houdini? might evoke different visions for you, but good luck putting it into words. The twenty-some member Swedish pop-indie collection I’m From Barcelona (they aren’t actually from Barcelona) conjures stories inspired by the infamous magician’s legend as conducted through the life, music, and words of I’m From Barcelona lead Emanuel Lundgren. It seems superstitious to believe one man can just wave a wand and create a collaboration so unique that Houdini himself might have applauded along; then again, we are dealing with magic here.

Lundgren doesn’t so much pull a rabbit out of a hat with Houdini. Rather, he tries his hand at escape artistry, wiggling out of the chains that hold the genre together, baiting his breath against the water pressure of modern pop-rock, and contorting his entire body into a neat, haunting box of melody and honesty.

Houdini travels effortlessly between the deranged, the happy, the serious, the melancholy, and the jubilant, boasting a lighthearted immediacy that spans generations. From the moment the opening track’s (‘Andy’) aura builds and the group vocals break in, you can tell instead of chugging or thrashing along, you’ll simply be floating through the album’s course. ‘Paper Planes’ unfastens with gentle banjo picking, trailing deep toned clarinets and playful sitcom laughter - all driven by the honest-but-not-too-earnest vocals of Lundgren. ‘Music Killed Me’ stands out as the album’s indie anthem, riding along with busy but never intrusive drums, piano slowdowns, chorus vocals, and airy melodies. By the end of Houdini, ‘Rufus’ shoots you up with a Bowie-esque dose of adrenaline (a la ‘Queen Bitch’), rocking the clap like it’s the band’s job.

The question lingers: what was Lundgren trying to accomplish with this album? And the answer is simple: he only wanted to escape from his box. Houdini is proof positive that I’m From Barcelona is indeed alive and kicking

Mark Sherbin