Here We Go Magic: Yes, It Is

Listening to Here We Go Magic’s eponymous debut is like spelunking down deep beneath the ocean’s surface, into a crowded, glass-walled room with underwater views. Cross-legged kids are whispering to each other, playing a game of telephone and passing the collection plate happily as the big sea scenes float by. It’s music that rushes inside, firing on all cylinders for a slow push through the vast, soupy abyss.
Deceptively, this polyvocality is the product of just one man—Luke Temple. The Greenpoint resident has been releasing music under his own name since 2004. Adopting a the sobriquet Here We Go Magic, he recorded nine new songs, which became a full-length release from Western Vinyl in March, in his Jewel Street apartment in just two months.
The album has garnered critical acclaim from influential Web sites like Pitchfork and Said the Gramophone, and major media outlets including NPR and Spin. Ditching fancy microphones for a SM57 and recording on a simple cassette four-track, Temple made a lo-fidelity album that has a warmth to it that’s rare in this Pro Tools-dominated musical moment. The bedroom recording process also suits the intimate, beguiling soundscapes Temple crafts, which feel at once pillow-talk private and other-worldly mysterious.
HWGM, now expanded into a full band, recently closed an 18-date cross-country tour opening for indie rock darlings, Brooklyn’s own Grizzly Bear, with two sold-out shows at the historic Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco. Temple and company are now wending their way homeward, headlining a spate of shows across the states. They are scheduled to play a homecoming gig at South Street Seaport Friday night.
Temple’s low, relaxed speaking voice belies the high, saccharine vocal stylings on HWGM and his previous full-length releases, Snowbeast and Hold a Match for a Gasoline World. The modest Massachuesetts native studied fine art before settling into the life of a musician, picking up work plastering when not on tour. HWGM represents a career shift from solo artist to guiding songwriting force in a band—a change Temple has been waiting to make for some time.
“Making a Luke Temple record, it was always my thing,” he says. “It was having a band supporting a songwriter versus having a unified thing. I’ve always wanted that unification. I’ve always wanted to create something where everyone had a main part.”
After an offer came in from Daniel Rossen—the singer and songwriter behind both Grizzly Bear and Department of Eagles—to join DOE on a short tour, that desire became a necessity. Having lived in Williamsburg and Greenpoint for nine years, Temple knew a few worthy candidates to reach out to for musical support. The band is now rounded out by Peter Hale on drums, Kristina Lieberson on keyboards, Michael Bloch on guitar, and, the most recent addition, Jennifer Turner, on bass.
All members, except Turner, who lives in Manhattan, live in Williamsburg and Greenpoint.
“There’s lots of good music coming out of New York and specifically Brooklyn,” Temple says. “As a musician you kind of absorb that. There’s a thread of experimentation that’s contagious.”
It’s that local connection of artists and music makers that also led to a tour with Grizzly Bear. Temple had met all the members a Grizzly Bear at one point or another. After GB frontman Edward Droste heard some of Temple’s new music and blogged about the HWGM song, “Tunnelvision,” the momentum that brought the two Brooklyn bands together on a tour really picked up.
Calling “Tunnelvision” “gorgeous and shimmering,” Droste wrote, “Nothing better to start off a new year than a total surprise song and band that came out of nowhere to win you over!”
As much as he likes New York, Temple has grown “weary of it” living here for so long, and prefers the road. Touring with a well-known live act like Grizzly Bear was a formative experience for his young band.
“The tour with Grizzly Bear was amazing,” Temple says. “They’re such gracious guys. For such a young band to be able to play in front of 2,000 people in all these amazing venues…it was a definite learning experience. We were thrown to the wolves at first—it was nerve-wracking and we had to make some adjustments playing to that many people. We’re just figuring ourselves out as a band.”
And the prolific Temple, set to travel with HWGM to Europe for two weeks this summer before returning to Brooklyn to record a batch of new material, to be released on Secretly Canadian, seems like he’s just getting started.