His last opus had a three-word title. It was his first breakthrough and McKinley has a dazzling talent for expression. He diluted his work to three words and two emotions. He now chose only two words. The magic, that first part, is in the lyrics; the magic realist suburban sun-burnt spectacle of tarmac-burning joy of movement, both from and towards. It’s in the exuberant preaching of Dixon, in his flair for depicting urban landscapes and mindscapes, full of, first and foremost, life. There is warmness, feeling in these accounts, but the seeds are contained in the lush foliage of instruments that fit so well within the boundaries of Dixon’s imagination. His instrumentals always had this jazz fusion veneer, but have never been this well-recorded and so well intertwined with the poet’s words, so natural in their evolution.
Dixon’s world is cozy and restrained in scope. It is one never-ending street, on which his bicycle tires seem to float. The houses he passes all hold their own stories, their own family affairs that one can glean from the front porch. But the central voice has plenty of their own to tell, and each is a delight. They are histories of personal strife, childlike wonder, shining light through the barred windows of crime-ridden hoods. Continuing to draw from the hopeful warm incandescence of his previous effort, he has perfected his own expression, with what is no doubt his magnum opus. While treading on footpaths walked by something like tpab, “Magic, Alive!” is as much a sermon as it is social commentary. It might be more sermon, on second thought, and it that it is greater than Kendrick’s own ode to the hood. It is a hymn to growth, but not that self-help kind. It’s blooming, organic, it’s extending hands and love and understanding. The world is outside mirrors the world inside, and man is it radiant.
Apple Music | Spotify | Bandcamp | YouTube Music | YouTube (Full Album)